Page:Ethical Studies (reprint 1911).djvu/132

 Thirdly (c) if you maintain more pleasure and higher function to be on the whole inseparable, you may at once be challenged as to the truth of that assertion; and if you are not allowed to assume it, you can not assume that more pleasure is an end.

But allowing you for the present to assume that higher function and more pleasure go together, so that to have one is to have the other, why (I would ask), if these two are one whole, will you persist in isolating one side of that whole; since surely it is the less knowable side? The coincidence of the two is an extremely general truth; it need not be true for this man or generation; and, if so, how is it possible to aim at progress except by aiming at function? The function must (on the whole and in the end) carry the pleasure with it, and it is surely a more definite mark. Is it not preposterous to think of aiming at more pleasure, in the end and on the whole (not in any future that we can see), in order, by making this the end, to get along with it some higher function which we know nothing about? Is it not (e.g.) hopelessly vague, if we want to find out what the divine will is, to attempt to define it by some idea of pleasure in the end and on the whole, and not to ourselves or any one else in any time that we can see? Is it not less vague to study that will by considering the previous evolution of it, and to accept what seems a higher step in that evolution, as an end in itself? Must we not say that this going together of function and pleasure is a mere general faith, which we can not verify by experience in every case, and so can not use to determine our particular course?

Of course one sees quite clearly that, generally speaking, it is a good thing to aim at the increasing of pleasure and diminishing of pain; but it is a good thing because it increases the actuality and possibility of life. To make function the end justifies and demands the increase of pleasure and gives you all you can fairly ask in that way. But to say more pleasure is all the end, and life a mere accompaniment to that, is another matter.

And again, when we are doubtful what is higher in progress, it may be a safe course to increase pleasure and diminish pain, because that heightens the good function we have. But to look on the increase of pleasure as the mark to aim at always and simply, when we aim at progress, is again a very different course.

But, leaving this subject, we must observe that we have no right to assume that higher function and more pleasure do on the whole go together. We have bitter proof that in particular cases and stages of progress this is not the case, and so are forced to separate the two in our minds. We can imagine function without pleasure, since we have experienced