Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/216

III. HEDONISM AMONG IDEALISTS (I.). BY BERNARD BOSANQUET. IT is interesting to observe that Hedonism appears to be making way among Idealists. There are reasons for this, in the modifications which criticism has brought to the views of both the extreme parties to the anti-Hedonist con- troversy. Psychological Hedonism, more especially, seems to be dead, and its disappearance has brought the disputants nearer together. A certain air of odium theologicum has faded from the argument. It is probable that the influence of Sidgwick's views, co-operating with the deeper analysis of recent psychology, has had much to do with bringing about the present position. Even those who, like myself, are still definitely anti- Hedonistic, must welcome this state of things. It affords some hope that we may attain, as R. L. Nettleship desired, 1 to a genuine appreciation and comparison of the experiences to which we give the name of pleasure, and may learn exactly where the difficulty lies which causes their nature .and value to be so divergently estimated. I have been greatly interested both by Mr. Taylor's and by Mr. Rashdall's treatment of the subject. But on the present occasion I wish to consider Mr. McTaggart's chapter " On the Supreme Good and the Moral Criterion " in his brilliant book of last year, Studies in Hegelian Cosmology. This, how- ever its main thesis may stand the criticism of years to come, is for the present a leading document of modern Idealism. Now in such a work, a quarter of a century ago, we should as soon have expected to find a defence of materialism as an advocacy of Hedonism. Mr. McTaggart's view has therefore for those who learnt, say, from Green, the interest of a paradox, while, as I have indicated, it unquestionably belongs to a tendency of the Idealism of to-day. 1 Remains^ 1, 7.