Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/384

 370 HASTINGS EASHDALL: to me, be denied without going the length of saying that the duration of a pleasure, if it only be intense enough, is a matter of absolute indifference to us. And Prof. Mackenzie, in a moment of metaphysical exaltation, really does seem prepared to go to this amazing length. " A moment of blessedness," he tells us, " would be as good as an eternity, because the eternity would only go on repeating the blessed- ness and not increasing it." l I can only say that most of us would attach considerable value to what Prof. Mackenzie dismisses with a contemptuous " only ". If we could attain this moment of blessedness, that is exactly what we should want that it should be repeated as often as possible. There is no arguing about these matters of psychological experience and ethical judgment. I can only say that as a matter of fact I would not take the trouble to walk across the street io get a moment of blessedness if I were assured that the blessedness would occupy my consciousness only for y^ of a second. I will add once more a reminder too often forgotten in the polemics of anti-hedonists of the parallel case of pain. Prof. James has said (I quote from memory) that the utmost degree of torture of which human consciousness is capable would be a matter of supreme indifference to him if he could be assured that it would last only y^ of a second. Would Prof. Mackenzie be prepared to say that if condemned to such a torture it would be a matter of indifference to him how long it went on ? If then duration of pleasure is desired as well as intensity of pleasure, will it be denied that, in choosing between two pleasures (i.e., between the psychical consequences of alternative acts of choice) we do balance duration against intensity, and choose that which promises most pleasure on the whole the discomforts of a four hours' passage on a good boat against the horrors of two hours on a bad one, or (if income be limited) the three hours of fierce delight (plus a certain amount of retrospective pleasure afterwards) which five shillings will buy at a theatre against the calmer but more prolonged enjoyment of a five-shilling book ? This is all at bottom that is meant by the much -decried idea of a hedonistic calculus all perhaps that it is absolutely necessary to contend for. But there is, as I have suggested, one point more not perhaps absolutely essential to the idea, but usually implied in it, and it is this perhaps which is most apt to be denied by the more moderate of those who object to the expression " sum of pleasures " and that is the 1 Social Philosophy, p. 208.