dressed,—those who are not very familiar with ethical problems,—Mr. Fite's presentations may well prove rather confusing. They will learn in the first place that by 'pleasure' the hedonist means the pleasures of sense, sensuous gratification; that intellectual pleasures as such are an illusion; that the pursuit of knowledge is simply a more refined way of seeking sensuous pleasure (Chap. III); and then they will perhaps quite logically conclude that though Aristippus and Helvetius may have been hedonists, Epicurus and Mill and Sidgwick certainly were not. They may think at first that even Bentham was not a hedonist, because he held that, provided the quantity of pleasure is the same, poetry is as good as push-pin,—i.e., he regarded the source of the pleasure as a matter of indifference, and did not confine pleasure to the sphere of the senses; but they will soon learn (p. 50) that reading poetry is ultimately sensuous pleasure, since its only real value is in contributing to material needs and physical welfare.
They will learn further that to the hedonist happiness and freedom from pain constitute ultimately our sole object of desire; that we are never interested in others for their own sake, or in any object for its own sake; that all our actions are directed toward the enjoyment of sensuous pleasure; that each of us is actuated solely by self-interest,—that is, by the demands of the bodily self (pp. 86, 225); but they will fail to find any clear distinction between psychological and ethical or rational hedonism, or between the egoistic and the universalistic forms of the pleasure theory. Sidgwick will be a puzzle to them, and Leslie Stephen will be classed as an idealist, since idealists, according to Mr. Fite, have a monopoly of the conception of society as an organism.
Again, the reader will learn that the hedonistic theory may be regarded as a mechanical view of conduct; that the general opposition between hedonism and idealism rests upon the distinction between mechanical and conscious action; that for hedonism the human being is a machine; that to the hedonist and materialist nothing but the individual atom is absolutely and permanently self-identical; that the hedonistic point of view is that of external observation; that it denies personal identity and purposive activity; that the self of hedonism is the human body; that a state of feeling is pleasurable to the extent that effort is absent; that the quintessence of pleasure is the languorous dreamy state pictured in the Oriental paradise; that in relation to practice hedonism tells us to conform to the world of mechanical forces, since no effort of ours can modify conditions so as to make them more conformable to ideal ends (pp. 95, in, 192, 203, 209, 290, 324). In short, hedonism regards man as a conscious automaton irresistibly seeking (if, indeed, he can be said to seek anything) sensuous gratification. The reader would be obliged to conclude that the hedonist is necessarily a materialist, and that the general happiness is not regarded by any as an ideal end; and he would be at a loss to explain the inconsistency of the English utilitarians in their effort to improve social conditions
