Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/394

380 HASTINGS RASHDALL: but pleasures may differ in kind " ; or, " Pleasures differ in kind, but not qua pleasures". Some philosophers who are not Hedonists may be prepared to deny that any distinction can be made between the value which things have as pleasure and the value which they have on other grounds, and to con- tend that an ethical judgment always refers simply to the ultimate value of a certain state of consciousness. Such a contention (which cannot be adequately discussed here) would seem either (1) to bring back Hedonism under another name, or (2) to get rid of the idea of pleasure altogether. I am quite clear that in my own mind I make a distinction between the pleasantness of things and their value. As I understand the word ' pleasure,' the less pleasant of two states of consciousness sometimes presents itself to me as the more valuable. When it is said (as it is by some, though I cannot point to any published expression of that view) that pleasures differ in kind qua pleasures, I do not know what can be meant by the doctrine unless it be the undoubted and important fact that the pleasurableness of a total state of mind is inseparably bound up with the value that it has on other grounds. It is not a mere accident that various states of mind to which we attribute higher value than other states of mind on account of their intrinsic worth do happen to be also pleasant. When I say that the contemplation of beauty seems to be good as well as pleasant, while the sensation derived from eating turtle soup seems to me pleasant, but to possess a very low degree of goodness or ultimate value, I do not first form an estimate of the value which looking at the beautiful picture would have if it were not pleasant, and then add to it the additional value which it derives from being also pleasant. The pleasantness of the aesthetic gratification is an essential part of my conception of it. I do not know what beauty would be like if it were not a source of pleasure, or whether I should attribute any value to it at all if it were not essen- tially pleasant ; and yet I am conscious that the pleasantness is not the sole source or measure of the value that I attach to it. All this seems to be perfectly true ; and it goes to show that every comparison between very heterogeneous pleasures simply in respect of their pleasantness is a very difficult and delicate proceeding. Fortunately it is for the most part useless and unnecessary, but not wholly so. It is often exceedingly difficult to say how much of the value we attribute to some occupation springs from its pleasantness, and how much from our sense of the value which it has on other grounds ; and yet that is what we must do when we