ful because it affects me, or is, on the other hand, my emotion the result of its beauty? In each of these cases we first have made a separation which is too rigid, and on this foundation are built questions which threaten us with a dilemma. We set down upon each side, as a fact and as presupposed, what apart from the other side, at least sometimes, would have no existence. If good is the satisfaction of desire, you may take desire as being its condition; but, on the other hand, you would desire hardly anything at all, unless in some sense it had given satisfaction already. Certainly the pleasant, as we have seen, may, for a time and at a low level, be not approved of or desired. But it is another thing to assert that goodness consists in, or is a mere result from, pleasure.
That which consistent Hedonism would, at least by implication, deny, is the direction of desire in the end towards anything but pleasure. Something is pleasant as a fact, and solely for that cause it is desired; and with this the whole question seems forthwith settled. But pleasure itself, like every other fact, cannot be something which just happens. Upon its side also, assuredly, it is not without a reason. And, when we ask, we find that pleasure co-exists always with what we call perfection or individuality. But, if so, then surely the “because” holds as firmly in one way as in the other. And, so far as I see, if we have a right to deny that a certain character is necessary for pleasure, we should have the same right to repudiate the connection between pleasure and desire. If the one co-existence is mere accident and a conjunction which happens, then why not also, and as much, the other? But, if we agree that the connection is two-sided, and that a degree of relative perfection is essential to pleasure, just as pleasure, on its side, is an element in perfection, then Hedonism, at once, is in principle refuted. The object of desire will never fail, as
