the realization of any object, is the end: all else is means thereto, and to be treated as such.’ Here we have at last the typical voluptuary.
We have little to add to what has been said before: the points to which attention must be called are the following. The end is now consciously and explicitly subjective; nothing objective is desired for itself. And, further, the idea of the end is got by a process of reflection and far-reaching abstraction. The end is not the realization of this or that object, either for itself or as that which creates such and such pleasant feelings; nor is it even such and such pleasant feelings for themselves. The end is not the pleasant known as pleasant, but the pleasant apart from its content, and simply in respect of its pleasantness; it is pleasure as pleasure. Such an end, if consciously brought before the mind, is myself as a permanent end to be realized, not in this or that object, nor even in this or that feeling or set of feelings, but, in abstraction from all content, as the self which feels itself affirmed. The feeling of self-realization is the end, which calls for reality, without respect for anything in which the self is to be realized, except as means. It is not necessary to repeat that the abstract feeling of satisfaction, as an end, contradicts the very notion of an end and must fail to satisfy; nor is it necessary to add that the voluptuary, as the man who consistently pursues that end, is an impossible character.
To return to our main subject. After this long but, I hope, not useless account of the voluptuary, the question arises, have we found what selfishness is? And the answer is, Certainly not. The voluptuary is selfish, whether he be the ideal one who consciously pursues the abstraction of pleasure, or the real one who to be consistent should do so, the man who makes an end of the pleasant satisfaction of sensual appetites. But the selfish man need not be a voluptuary, for he need not realize for himself beforehand his expectation of pleasures; and we have still to ask what selfishness is.
What first is it not? It is not mere conscious pleasure-seeking, since acts other than this are selfish. It is not doing what you like, because, as we saw, in one sense no one ever does anything else, and
