Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/278

 264 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

At the present time there are grave doubts as to the constant character of feeling. The fundamental postulate as to the unsepa- rably threefold character of consciousness, even, is still some- times called in question. It is quite generally assumed that our knowledge of pleasure and pain and their value is much greater than it really is. If it be said that too much of any form of stimulus brings pain, it is not yet certain that there is a too-much of every form of stimulus. Again, is pain always present to indicate damage ? Certainly not in the case of changes of per- sonality, or in all forms of mental degeneration. Mere loss, contraction of powers, does not seem to bring it. Again, is pleasure a safe indicator of well-being ? In the case of poisons that taste agreeably and yet destroy, it is not. And if pleasure be defined as dependent upon expansion, is not every retreat from prospective pain an expansion ? And here pleasure and pain would seem to be conflicting equalities. The psychologist must confront such problems, and many more besides, until he is ready to confess that he does not even know what pleasure is, or pain. And with his inability to draw the line between, he is quite frank. Until his work be more completely done, ethical science must want for such propaedeutic, and must rely upon dis- coveries already made.

But this is not to say that one must possess his soul in patience until this seemingly indeterminable siege, with such approachless facts, is done. Fortunately, we are not compelled to say, with Socrates, that the best worship is to conform to the religious observances of the land. Ethics is a science, but not by means of the unworkable reference to feeling. One is not compelled to wait until those vast complexities are unraveled. Already he finds a test, if still a crude one, ready at hand.

The judge does not refuse to try the case because he cannot determine the most useful decision in terms of pleasure. The carpenter is not paralyzed by his inability to measure the pre- ponderance of social joy. Nor is the logician at a loss for cer- tainty without it. Even the utilitarian has not been hindered by utter inability to apply his own dictum. There are, then, tests by which the value of action is determined, and by these the