Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/375

CAN THERE BE A SUM OF PLEASURES? 361 For purposes of criticism it will be convenient to break up the positions of my opponents into three assertions, all of which are made by Prof. Mackenzie but of which the last might possibly be maintained without the second, or the last two without the first. I begin, that is to say, with the more extreme position and then go on to the more moderate forms of the doctrine which I am criticising. I may say at once that it is the first two which I am chiefly concerned to deny : the third seems to me to raise a more subtle and debatable question, and (while I am prepared to defend my thesis on this point) I attach little importance to it, and would parti- cularly insist that failure to establish my position thereon should not be held in any way to invalidate my argument in relation to the other two. The three positions which I dispute are these : (1) That a sum of pleasures is not a possible object of desire. (2) That while the proposition this pleasure is greater or more pleasant than that has a meaning, the judgment is not quanti- tative. (3) That even if one pleasure or sum of pleasures can be said to be greater in amount than another, numerical values cannot, with any meaning, be assigned to two pleasures or sums of pleasure : so that there can never be any meaning in the assertion " this pleasure is twice as great as that ". I may add that for the present I am dealing with the comparison of pleasures of the same kind or quality. After- wards I shall have something to say as to the comparison of pleasures which "differ in kind". Meanwhile, the fact that I am confining myself to pleasures of the same kind may perhaps be my excuse if I take my illustrations for the most part from pleasures of a low type, such as those of eating and drinking. I do so simply because what I contend for is most clearly seen in the case of such pleasures. I make this remark to deprecate the wrath of critics who, while apparently not averse to a good dinner, seem to wish it to be understood that the pleasantness of the meal is to them contemptible not to say a regrettable accident involved in the pursuit of some higher end, the nature of which they never seem able to indicate with any precision. I need hardly say that I have no desire to emphasise the importance of the element contributed to happiness by those pleasures of eating and drinking to which the actual usages of the most refined societies give so unfortunate and indefensible a prominence. w 'I y|