school alone, but round us in life, we see that to identify in the beginning pleasure and happiness, leads in the end to the confession that there ‘is nothing in it,’ εὐδαιμονίαν ὅλος ἀδύνατον εινας. The ‘pursuit of pleasure’ is a phrase which calls for a smile or a sigh, since the world has learnt that, if pleasure is the end, it is an end which must not be made one, and is found there most where it is not sought. If to find pleasure is the end, and science is the means, then indeed we must say
| Die hohe Kraft Der Wissenschaft, Der ganzen Welt verborgen! Und wer nicht denkt, Dem wird sie geschenkt, Er hat sie ohne Sorgen.[1] |
Common opinion repeats its old song, that the search for pleasure is the coarsest form of vulgar delusion, that if you want to be happy in the sense of pleased, you must not think of pleasure, but, taking up some accredited form of living, must make that your end, and in that case, with moderately good fortune, you will be happy; if you are not, then it must be your own fault; but that, if you go further, you are like to fare worse. You had better not try elsewhere, or, at least, not for pleasure elsewhere.
So far the weight of popular experience bears heavily against the practicability of Hedonism. But Hedonism, we shall be told, does not of necessity mean the search by the individual for the pleasure of the individual. It is to such selfish pleasure-seeking alone that the proverbial condemnation of Hedonism applies. The end for modern Utilitarianism is not the pleasure of one, but the pleasure of all, the maximum of pleasurable, and minimum of painful, feeling in all sentient organisms, and not in my sentient
- ↑ Thus rendered in Mr. C. Kegan Paul’s version of Faust:
The highest might
Of science quite
Is from the world concealed!
But whosoe’er
Expends no care,
To him it is revealed.
