Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/377

 CAN THERE BE A SUM OF PLEASURES? 363 known as the " hysteron-proteron of the hedonistic psycho- logy " I have nothing to add to what has been urged by a host of writers among whom it will be enough to mention Bishop Butler, Prof. T. H. Green and Prof. Sidgwick. But the question before us is not whether other things can be desired beside pleasures, but whether pleasures are or are not capable of being desired at all. Certainly I do not believe that an angry man desires vengeance because he has calcu- lated from his own experience or the recorded experience of others that the pleasures of vengeance are the sweetest. Certainly there are cases where a man gratifies his anger or his desire of vengeance with the certain knowledge that his act will entail pains which no impartial calculation of pleasures could possibly conclude to be outweighed by the pleasure of satisfied anger or revenge. (We are obliged to use the language of common life, though of course upon the assumptions of the hedonistic psychology there could not really be such a thing as anger or passion of any kind.) Unquestionably there are cases where the uplifted arm would not be stayed by the most demonstrated certainty of the greatest sum of pleasures that earth has to offer. But is all this equally true of cases where a man desires to eat or h drink something which experience has shown to be pleasant ? The contention we are examining would seem to involve the (assertion that, when a man who is not thirsty or in quest of health drinks port, he is impelled by a desire of port portj as such, port for port's sake. The niceness of the port is,l it would seem to be hinted, a quite irrelevant circumstance.! What he wants is port because it is port, not port because/ it is nice. If that were so, it would seem that the uplifted glass would not be put down even if some fellow-reveller warns the drinker, "Don't drink this, it is beastly". If the desire of port were based upon some antecedent desire other than desire for the pleasure of port drinking, it would seem that the warning must necessarily pass unheeded. It may possibly be urged that what the man wants is both port and nice port : but that of course is to admit the opponent's case; the desire for pleasant sensation is one of his desires : he does desire pleasant sensation just because it is pleasant, whatever he desires or does not desire besides. There is another way of meeting the case. The position in question when turned from a negative into a positive form ould seem to amount to this : pleasure is always the result of the satisfaction of some desire or some want other than the desire of the pleasure. That most of our highest desires and some of our worst ones are of this character has already