Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/378

 364 HASTINGS EASHDALL : been admitted, though I believe that the " disinterestedness " of the so-called " disinterested desires " is a question of degree : in many cases a really disinterested desire is greatly stimulated by the experienced pleasured satisfaction" But, however this may be, I fully admit that most of our pleasures are conditioned by the presence of some desire which cannot be described as a desire for pleasure, or by some want or appetite of a kind which it is better perhaps to distinguish from the more rational class of "disinterested desires". There is a pleasure in getting warm when I am cold, in eating when I am hungry and so on. But are all pleasures of sensation of this kind ? Such a contention seems to be opposed to the most familiar experience. I certainly often rise from my chair and stand before the fire, though I am not in the least cold, simply because experience has shown me that the practice is attended with pleasure,. The con- tinental stoveT may more than satisfy oufdesire of warmth, but Englishmen persist nevertheless in preferring their uneconomical open fires. The medical profession would be ruined if there were no pleasure in eating after hunger is satisfied orif^uchpleasure could not become the object of desire. Moreover7"fhe pleasure is in many cases quite inde- pendent of any previous desire at all whether for that pleasure or for anything else. Where the pleasure arises from the satisfaction of desire, the pleasure cannot be felt when the desire is absent. If knowledge is forced on those who have no desire for knowledge, its attainment is often found by no means conducive to pleasure. But the fanatical teetotaler's appreciation of champagne might be by no means lessened by the fact that he had drunk it under the impression that it was the lemonade for which he had craved. That the pleasures of smell are independent of previous desire attracted the especial notice of Plato. And while this independence of previous desire is characteristic of certain kinds of mere sensation, it is not limited to sensual pleasures. It is especi- ally, I think, characteristic of the aesthetic pleasures. My appreciation of a landscape or a picture is in no way dimin- ished because it comes in my way at a moment when I am thinking of something quite different. And if it be said that it appeals to me only because it satisfies a permanent desire for the beautiful which is capable of being aroused by the presentation of that which will satisfy it, one may ask, " How in the first instance is the desire of beauty aroused? " Is it normally the case that people are led to the search for beauty by a craving for what they have never experienced as many both of the highest desires and of the lowest appetites do