Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/233

 HEDONISM AMONG IDEALISTS. 219 We are surprised to find a long chapter of a familiar controversy omitted at this point by the immediate identi- fication of Happiness with the greatest quantity of Pleasure. I imagine that in the author's judgment his arguments to show that the summation of pleasures has a meaning, have removed the objections commonly made to this iden- tification. I am obliged to impeach this identification not merely from doubting the possibility of summation of pleasures, but for more direct reasons. I must therefore resuscitate the controversy in question, which, though it has the defect of belonging to an acute phase of the anti-Hedonist dispute, has the merit of turning our eyes directly on the experience under discussion. I have tried to show that Hedonic calculation becomea unworkable just about at the point where if workable it would be applicable to the serious direction of life. And I now contend (point 3 of sect. 102), that if, by restricting our- selves to the more calculable levels we made it appear to be workable, the results would be unreliable or worse, even with respect to happiness or harmony with our surround- ings. I take the word Happiness to be primarily the name of a problem. It indicates, as I understand, that which would satisfy us, whatever it may prove to be. Whether it is or is not coincident with the greatest quantity of pleasure, is for me an independent question. Happiness, complete satisfaction, it may be conceded, must be what we mean by the good that which we really want. But this does not establish the correctness of the Hedonic criterion until we know that this criterion points the way to happiness or satisfaction. This is the essence of the question before us. We have seen, in discussing the workableness of the Hedonic criterion, that it is extraordinarily impartial, i.e. that for it sums of pleasure and pain, compounded absolutely anyhow in complete abstraction from their contents, are equally choiceworthy if equal for Hedonic appreciation. We also saw that quantitative Hedonic calculation tends to pass into something else when we arrive at the more complex relations of life considered as a design. Following up these suggestions, I am going to recur to the old topic of the pleasures of the natural man as the crux of ethical and aesthetic science. The whole raison d'etre of these sciences when one first approaches them, certainly seems to be in the paradox that what is pleasant to the natural man is not right nor beautiful. If, one is inclined