apart from some present function or activity pleasure could exist. The questions to be answered would be, how far in what seem the most, or mere, ‘passive pleasures’ of sense function is concerned; how far in contemplative pleasures activity of contemplation comes in; how far, lastly, the very feeling of self, which is pleasure, in being felt implies an activity. To a tired man, for instance, the pleasure of lying down in bed is great; he wants no more; it is complete affirmation of his will, perfect satisfiedness. But as he grows more and more sleepy, does his pleasure increase? When he is asleep does he feel pleasure? On the other hand, is he less satisfied? and if so, in what sense? If his pleasure has been diminished or has ceased, is not that because the reaction, the function of the feeling centre has ceased or been diminished; and is not that reaction what is felt when pleasure is felt?
Let us, however, pass by this question, as without answering it decidedly we hope to show how far pleasure is good. Roughly speaking, we can distinguish pleasures of activity and passivity; pleasure which comes with our doing something, and pleasure which we do nothing to get.[1] Let us ask with each class when pleasure is good, and when it is bad, if it is bad. We will first take pleasures of activity.
(1) (a) When are they good? When the activity is good the pleasure is good, because the two are a psychical whole. You can not have the function without the pleasure: the absence of the pleasure would weaken and perhaps destroy the function, and also generally lower the self to the detriment of other functions; whereas presence of pleasure tends to the heightening of functions in general, beside its own function.—Then what activities are good? Detail is impossible; but, generally, those which directly realize the good will in a living man, or which indirectly increase life and so the possibility of a higher realization of the good in a living man or men. Or rather the two can not be divided. Life is a whole; and life is not only the condition of the good, but may be taken as another name for it. ‘The end of life is life,’ and (speaking generally) what heightens life heightens the good. Pleasure then is not a means to the good, but is included in it and belongs to it.
(b) What pleasures of activity are bad then? for admittedly there are such. The pleasure is bad when the activity is bad; and the activity is bad when, in its immediate or ulterior results, it lowers
- ↑ We need not distinguish further the pleasure of having something done to us. It will, I think, be covered by our answer, and it is a somewhat complicated state of mind.
