Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/58

 44 F. H. BRADLEY : culty appears to myself to call for very serious considera- (2) The next question I should like to raise is a difficulty about the requisite lapse of time. In ideas of the pleasant the pleasantness at least seems to be an integral part of the meaning, and, if it is not so, and has to be on every occasion freshly made, is there always enough of time, when we think rapidly, for this new creation to supervene in each case? Or if there is not time enough, are we to be said here to think only in words and without a genuine meaning ? To one who like myself considers pleasure to be an essential element in beauty it seems hard to suppose that, when we use aesthetic ideas, this element of their meaning is in each case a fresh effect of the other elements. But even apart from this special instance of aesthetic ideas, how is the general difficulty about this lapse of time to be dealt with? In asserting the law of Association to hold of pleasure we must of course remember that, unless there are distinctions in pleasure of such a kind and to such an extent as most certainly seem wanting, the connexion cannot be taken to hold from the mere aspect of pleasantness to this or that pleasant thing in distinction from other things. The bond will hold from the side of pleasure but generically. On the other side, however, from the thing to the pleasure, the special association will hold. But such a one-sided arrangement does 1 There is a difficulty here, I admit, which attaches itself also to the view which I think the true one. In order to have an idea of pleasure I consider that we must to some extent have an actual pleasure, for I accept it as a principle that to some extent an idea must be what it means. But on the view which I adopt we have here an associative bond to unite specially the two elements, in addition to whatever original union there may be apart from that bond. And I consider this to be a very great advantage on my side. An interesting but very difficult question arises here as to our percep- tion of the different strengths of pleasure and pain. We indubitably in fact do perceive these degrees, and we at least seem to have ideas of them. In fact I should say that we can without doubt actually have a strong idea of a weak pleasure or a weak idea of a strong pleasure. A question however must be raised as to whether we can perceive different strengths of pleasure as such. It is necessary, I think, to say that we <;an even do this. I do not of course mean that we can have a ' more ' of pleasure without a ' more ' of what is pleasant, but that we can, beside a ' more ' of what is pleasant, actually have a moreness of and in pleasure. If we follow the facts we must, I think, suppose a scale of degrees in pleasure as such, a scale which can be attended to and made into an idea. On this ground again the paradox that we cannot attend to or have an idea of pleasure would seem not easy to maintain.