Page:Philosophical Review Volume 4.djvu/622

606 considered either abstractly or as sense-pleasure, or with an ideal considered as representing an element more objective than pleasure, that is, with reason. The abstractness of these terms is fully justified by the variety of theories which they have been made to cover. Pleasure may be taken as the individual's own pleasure, or as that of all; we may have hedonism or utilitarianism. The force of the former theory has never been disputed. A rule of pleasure has for its basis an undoubted fact of human nature, and in so far its rationality has much to recommend it. It is a practical theory so far as the question of authority is concerned. Utilitarianism, however, so far as it is considered a complete theory, is untenable. It must rest its claim to validity either on hedonism or on some rational principle. That is, the individual can rationally seek the good of others only when his own pleasure is involved therein, or when he seeks it on some principle other than that of pleasure. The difficulties of an empirical proof of the identity of social and private pleasure, will almost inevitably lead to the assumption of a theory introducing, consciously or unconsciously, a factor more objective than any in hedonism.

The attempt to coordinate hedonism and rationalism as principles of authority is subject to serious objection. The meaning of the term 'authority' is distinct in the two cases. In the former it is used purely of a matter of fact. The law of pleasure can never be more than a statement of what is, and the nature of its authority is expressed in the psychological theory that all men, as a fact, do follow pleasure. If you can trace the connection of every moral act with some pleasure, you have a rule which, in all probability, will be followed, but not a rule which you can say, in any intelligible sense of the term, ought to be followed. There is nothing in pleasure, considered in its abstract reference to self, to carry one beyond the particular time, place, or person. As soon as it is elevated into an ideal, we have that stable and universal character which has been commonly assigned to the reason. No matter what the content of the ideal may be, its nature is wholly changed by this conscious adoption as an ideal of conduct. It matters not