Page:Philosophical Review Volume 24.djvu/43

No. 1.] important than b because of the strong probability that h, i, j, ... n will be like it rather than like b. To this objection we can make two answers. In the first place, we can reply, men apparently feel that the quality of the later stages is more important than that of the earlier, even when that of still later ones is not in question. This is shown, I think, when we try to estimate the value of a life taken as a whole. When we survey a life that has been ended by death, we believe that the quality of its latter part is of the greatest importance. And while in many cases this feeling is probably in some measure due to the belief in immortality, I incline to think that it is equally strong in those who either reject the doctrine or are in doubt with regard to it. Of course it is open to any one to urge that even in these cases the feeling has its origin in the belief in a future life, and thus that those who reject the belief are yet unconsciously influenced by modes of thought that have their source and their sole justification in it. To discuss this assertion would take us too far afield ; I can only say that personally I doubt its truth. Moreover, even if we should grant it with reference to the other values, it seems hardly possible that our estimates of the pleasure-pain value of the earthly life are thus influenced by a belief in immortality. The affective quality of a particular stage offers no guarantee of the quality of subsequent stages, whether in this life or in a life to come. Nevertheless men seem to feel that, judged from the point of view of pleasure and pain, a life is more desirable if the fuller realization of affective value is in the later rather than in the earlier part.

But it matters comparatively little whether or not this first answer to the objection that we are considering brings conviction. For the second, to which I now pass, seems conclusive. The objection proposes to substitute for our explanation one that has the advantage of being simpler. But unfortunately this substitute explains, not the fact that we are trying to account for, but a different one. At the very best our opponent has explained only the greater importance of the later stages; he has not explained their compensatory function, the power that