up the thought of the pleasure or pain experienced before, and the animal might act appropriately without feeling peripherally excited pleasure or pain. The animal could tell what was good or bad for it without directly experiencing pleasure or pain at all, because each sensation would be associated with ideas or copies of past sensations, and it could preserve itself because these ideas would call up certain movements which had been made before. Indeed, the sensation itself might come to be associated with the appropriate movements, without the intervention of any additional element. The sight of the hawk may be associated in the consciousness of the hen with certain tendencies to action, and here the association may have been formed during the history of the species; it may be the result of race experience. The sight of a cliff over which the mule has once fallen may become associated in the mind of the animal with the thought of its past experience, and cause it to hesitate. Here the association is the result of individual experience. In both cases, however, a feeling of aversion is perhaps felt in the presence of the dangerous object, and this may be followed by a movement or the inhibition of a movement.

Now in the case of man abstract reasoning is added

to the other processes. We pick out certain characteristics from the concrete object which we are considering, and connect them with certain general consequences. We reason from the fact that a man 1 See James, Psychology: "Reasoning," Vol. II, chap. xxii.

1

has certain symptoms that he has a certain disease, and prescribe a particular mode of treatment. The general discovers a weakness in the enemy's line of battle, and makes the movements which will lead to the desired overthrow of the opposing force.

It seems, then, that in the lowest stages of life the feelings of pleasure and pain serve as signs that the act is preservative. Afterward this element falls into the background, and other signs are employed. Percepts and ideas are associated either with the idea of pleasure or pain, which, in turn, is associated with the idea of some appropriate movement; or the percept or idea is associated directly with the act, as is the case with instincts, habitual acts, ideo-motor action, etc.

Hence we may say again what we found to be true before: Feelings of pleasure and pain often serve as signs of what furthers and hinders life; sometimes the ideas of such feelings, that is, the expectation of pleasure and pain, sometimes other ideas, indicate it. Hence it is fair to say that pleasures and pains are means of guiding the will; they assist the will in preserving and promoting individual and generic life. Whenever these results can be attained without the help of pleasure and pain, other means are employed. Pleasure is not the end aimed at by the will, but a means. It is far more reasonable to say that the will blindly strives for the preservation and the development of life, and that pleasure and pain

are among its guides, than to say that pleasure is the end and life the means. The part is a means to the whole of which it is the part; the whole is not a means to an individual part.

15. The Physiological Basis of Pleasure-Pain. Now let us look at the matter physiologically. Let us consider what are the physiological conditions of pleasure and pain. When I exercise an organ moderately, a pleasant feeling arises; when I overexercise it, an unpleasant feeling is the result. A too intense light causes pain; a very loud sound does the same. It is often said that a very weak sensation is accompanied by an unpleasant feeling. This is true, however, only when we attempt to pay attention to it, in which case the pain is due to the effort we make. We may suppose that when an organ is exercised or stimulated, the cortical centre to which or from which the current runs has its nervous substance, its cells, destroyed. The energy in the cells is used up. But the energy is restored as quickly as possible by the blood, which carries nourishment. If the expended central energy is restored quickly enough to make up for the waste, a pleasant feeling arises. But when the cellular substance is not restored rapidly enough, we get unpleasant feelings. When the nervous system is acted upon, blood is carried to the parts in action in order to restore the expended force. The arteries are dilated. This explains the changes in pulse, respiration, etc., which accompany or follow pleas

urable feelings. When, however, too severe a drain is made upon the parts in action, the blood does not carry enough nourishment, and the lost energy is not restored. Pain ensues. The breaking down of the cells reacts upon the movement of the arteries; the greater the demand made upon them, the less they can do; they become constricted. Hence, intense bodily pain may produce a swoon, "and the tortures of the rack have sometimes put the victim to sleep."1

Now to say that pleasure is the end, would mean, when translated into physiological language, that the entire body, with all its complicated organs, was nothing but a means for keeping the nervous energy in such a state that destruction should not exceed construction.2 This is manifestly absurd. The sanest view to take is that the physiological condition corresponding to pleasure is a sign of the proper functioning of the system, that the health and integrity of the entire system is the end which is realized by the proper functioning of the nervous and every other system.

16. Metaphysical Hedonism.

Much harder would it be to prove that pleasure is the highest end

1 Külpe, Psychology, p. 273. See Sutherland, The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, Vol. II, chap. xxii.

2 Or, if we assume the existence of special pain and pleasure nerves, the hedonistic physiology would mean that all the other nerves and all the other parts of the body were means to the excitation of the pleasure nerves, and that the excitation of these nerves was the end and aim of life.

aimed at by nature or by God. We should have the same problem as before, complicated with all the difficulties belonging to the teleological argument in metaphysics. We should have to prove (1) that an end is really realized; (2) that pleasure is that end, which we have not been able to do so far ; (3) that it is the end desired by God or by some intelligent principle in nature; and (4) that everything else is an appropriate means of realizing it. It would have to be shown that God made the world and everything in it in order to procure pleasure or happiness for his creatures. Can that be done? Countless numbers of living beings perish in the struggle for existence. Many are called but few are chosen. Only those survive who can meet the requirements of their surroundings, whose natures are adapted to the conditions of the world.

To assume that the end aimed at by God is pleasure, is to assume that everything in this world, the complicated bodies of the animals and everything in existence, was made in order that living beings might get pleasure. One feels like asking in this connection, why so much effort was wasted to produce this result - tant de bruit pour une omelette · when it might have been attained with less trouble. Perhaps the jellyfish has less to grumble at than

man.

1 For an excellent critique of teleology, see Paulsen's Introduction to Philosophy, English translation, pp. 158 ff.