Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/300

 288 F. H. BEADLEY : The state which represents something pleasant or painful must furthermore itself be pleasant or painful. The idea will thus indi- rectly imply a feeling, and in this indirect way a motive will move. ' And by this we may not only support our paradox, but may prop up, besides, another doctrine. To suppose that what promises to be most pleasant must always move us, we know is a mistake, because the promised is an idea, while the mover is feeling. But, since the future prospect of the most pleasant could not be represented to us in idea, unless there were a feeling which served as the sign, hence, through this feeling and per accidens, the promise will move, and, per accidens again, the promise of the most pleasant will move us the most.' Such is the defence which we may place in the mouth of our failing paradox, and this defence, though erroneous, still is based on a solid foundation. The reader may refuse to follow us through these psychological subtleties, but I am sure that any one who is not at home in them is threatened by errors from every side. The defence we have put forward amounts to this : an idea not only represents something else beside itself, but is in itself an existing phenomenon, and in this capacity does psychological work. And hence the idea of immorality will be felt as an actual painful fact, and so will repel ; while, again, the idea of the greatest pleasure will be felt as most pleasant, and so must attract. The mistake that is made here is tolerably simple. It is true that the idea of a pleasure or a wrong act must imply a feeling, and that this feeling will do some work. But it is not true that the feeling need determine the will to avoid or pursue the object of the idea. This is perfectly obvious, and our experience of the contest of discrepant impulses puts it beyond doubt. What is felt pleasant or painful will determine us or not, according as it stands to our whole state of desire. We need ask no hard ques- tions about the nature of desire, but may state the matter thus. Admitting that pleasure and pain are what move us, it is still not mere pleasure nor again mere pain that determines the move- ment. It is the greatest felt pleasure, or the balance of pleasure or pain, that will succeed. And hence obviously, when we ask if a feeling will work, the question is a question of that feeling's intensity, and a question of its comparative intensity. We shall agree, I hope, that the above is obvious ; but it gives us a key to the puzzle before us. When an observer maintains that he cannot act against a wakeful conscience, what happens in his mind, I think, is this. He has fixed his attention upon the wrongful quality of the act, and that fixing of the attention has important results. In the first place it is exclusive ; that is, it keeps out other ideas, and so removes the conflicting influence of their feelings. In the second place (I do not ask how these two functions are connected) the attention strengthens ; that is,