Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/223

HEDONISM AMONG IDEALISTS. 209 of pleasant states the character of totality may hardly have begun to show itself, in the case of a realised perfection it already to some extent is achieved. In the former there is & new character to be created, in the latter only a defect to be removed. I feel sure that to call perfection and good- will " just as much abstract " as pleasure, is an overstatement. I judge that in the general line of this argument I should have Mr. Taylor's assent. No doubt the difference between Mr. McTaggart and my- self as to the reality of a sum of pleasures is accented by our disagreement as to the Hedonic criterion. Pleasure indicates satisfaction much less closely and less correctly for me than for him. (d) The next question to be raised is whether Pleasures and Pains can not only be compared in magnitude, singly, each to each, but can be compared in sums themselves ob- tained by addition or subtraction. So far as the discussion hinges on the theory of intensive quantities I will defer it to the point at which the author deals directly with this subject (sect. 122). Before coming to this, however, we have to meet an argu- ment based on introspection (sects. 116-7), which urges that in everyday non-moral action, and also even in non-Hedonist morality, we do as a fact continually decide questions which involve the comparison of pleasure-totals formed by addition and subtraction. The appeal to introspection is particularly interesting, as I implied at starting, in the present situation of the Hedonist controversy. If it is conducted with care and frankness it ought to lead us far towards ascertaining the reason of our differences. I find the verdict of introspec- tion on cases of the kind adduced to be not quite simple, and I believe there is risk of misinterpretation. The examples offered by the author are such as a choice between two dinners of equal cost and wholesomeness must we not and do we not here add together the expected pleasures within each alternative, and come to a decision by comparison of the sum- totals ? Or in choosing between means, themselves morally indifferent, to a given moral end, or in trying to give pleasure as such to others a duty, the author urges, on any moral theory or in weighing the importance of an intense feeling against that of a number of weaker feelings in the same person or in others ; in all these cases, it is urged, we do actually come to a decision ; and either we must arrive at it by addition of pains and pleasures, or we must admit that we are working in the dark. The verdict of introspection in these cases seems to me, 14