Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/553

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOG Y 535

interpreted as shrinkings from the painful. Under our present conditions of life they are meaningless.

Then there are the impulses. Can action under the spur of jealousy or anger be interpreted as a yielding to the greatest attraction? Panics, lynchings, and riots are not forms of pleasure-seeking, but manifestations of fear, hate, or blood- thirst.

Again, the creature whose ancestors ran a gauntlet of severe tests is certain to be energetic, to deploy its faculties under slight stimulus. If, now, the serious demands of existence become less taxing, the creature will relieve itself of its super- abundant energy in play activities. While the free forth-flowing of energy yields enjoyment, and the obstruction of it causes dis- tress, pleasure is not really the object of play. Mere gamboling is aimless, its cause is a vis a tergo. In sports and games the object is not pleasure, but a feat, a score, a triumph. Hedonism would apply to a race of canny but tired beings.

"But," it may be urged, "granting that many of man's original promptings are not hedonic, will he not, when he has reflected upon his experiences, seek to repeat the pleasant impressions and to inhibit such actions as entailed disagreeable consequences ? Applying the sure touchstones of pleasure and pain, will he not free himself from the thraldom of instincts and impulses, and remold his life on rational lines?"

This assumes that the action of reason is to weed out interests so far as they do not justify themselves as pleasure-yielding. But, in truth, reason creates interests as well as destroys them. In its restless explorations it comes upon problems which exer- cise fresh allurements. While critical minds are dissecting to death old ideals, creative spirits are setting up new goals. Hence every burst of intellectual activity is pregnant with new zests and enthusiasms. Men as they mount above the plane of instinct do not become simply more canny and calculating. Copernicus, Pascal, Newton, and Darwin were not arch-hedonists. Master- intellects, like Socrates and Bruno, are found sacrificing them- selves for their ideals. The fact is, reason turned inward may destroy ideals, but turned upon the world or upon men it kindles