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auld lang syne. We have literally here a flow of soul -an unimpeded activity. Let it be, on the other hand, merely the idea of our friend that occurs, and with it the consciousness of some barrier to the active exercise of the affection, e.g. distance or death, and mingled often strangely enough with the pleasure of the outgoing energy of affection is the pain that comes from the hindrance that is imposed upon it. *

2. The second of the above objections is founded on a simple misunderstanding of the Aristotelian philosophy, according to which a firm distinction is drawn between the activity and the attribute of the activity, viz. the pleasure or the pain that accompanies it. The activity is something objective, palpable, measurable. It mixes itself with things: fails of its object, or is successful. The pleasure is subjective, impalpable, unmeasurable, remaining hidden in the soul and standing to the successful activity as grace and glow stand to youth, but is neither the thing itself nor any true criterion of its real value in the system of things. That Mill fails to acknowledge this distinction, and insists that the criterion of the value-the perfection or imperfection of the activitycan only be the pleasure it brings, merely shows how far the form of Utilitarianism which he has rendered popular is from the truth that Aristotle has here grasped.

* The reader should consult, in the light of Aristotle's formula, Mr. Stout's excellent treatment of Pleasure and Pain, Analytic Psychology, Bk. II. c. xii. ; Manual of Psychology, Bk. III. div. i. c. iii.

§ 5. The Effect of Pleasure.

[X. c. iv. §§ 6-11 ; c. v. §§ 3-5.]

In reply to those who taught that pleasure is an obstruction to the higher activities of the soul,* Aristotle draws a distinction between pleasure which is proper and pleasure which is foreign to the activity, maintaining that faculties are not impeded by the pleasure proper to themselves. On the contrary, the effect of this pleasure is to perfect the exercise of faculty. Hindrance can only come from foreign pleasure.

There is perhaps no part of Aristotle's doctrine that has been so emphatically endorsed by modern theory as this account of the effect of pleasure. From the side of physiology we now know that the effect of pleasure in perfecting life is already foreshadowed in its effect upon the physical organismthe increased power of the voluntary muscles and of the pulse-beats, and even the increased volume of the limbs. On the other hand, it has been found that pain diminishes the force of muscular action, weakens the pulse, constricts the peripheral blood-vessels, and so causes decrease of volume in the limbs.† It is only a further application of the same principle when it is pointed out that the expressive movements which accompany joyful emotion are lively, expansive, rhythmical; those that accompany painful emotion,

* Ethics, VII. c. xii. § 5, which should be compared with the sections in X. c. iv.

† See Külpe, op. cit. pp. 245, 246.

loose, shrinking, spasmodic. From the side of Ethics we have already had occasion to notice (p. 76) that a good action is none the worse for being done with pleasure, but, on the contrary, is all the better. It is now seen that this is only an instance of the general law that pleasure, by causing efforts to be continued or repeated, completes and perfects them, while pain acts as a drag upon the activity.

"A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a!"

While modern psychology thus confirms the account that Aristotle here gives of the effect of pleasure and pain, it indicates an important limitation of the principle which it is important for practice to observe. Besides their general effect in respectively completing and obstructing the exercise of faculty— and, indeed, because of it—pleasure and pain under particular circumstances seem to have quite other and contrary effects. As is well known, that to which an organism has become accustomed is pleasant. The organism will thus be apt to continue or repeat the actions which are found to be pleasant. In this way pleasure tends to act as a conservative force keeping organisms in a round of familiar and stereotyped reactions. Pain, on the other hand, being a sign of maladjustment to object or environment, tends to throw the organism into a state of reaction against the cause of irritation, and so acts as a stimulant to movement and change. Where such a change is

* Professor Ward's article on “Psychology,” Encycl. Brit., vol. xx.

required by the health or life of the organism, pleasure will thus act in the direction of imperfect adjustment-pain in the direction of a fuller and completer life. Transferring this principle to human life, the essence of which is aspiration and progress through more or less painful effort, it is clear that the pleasure we take in the exercise of already acquired powers may tempt us to rest content with present achievements, and thus be a bar to progress.

"Let us alone-what pleasure can we have

To war with evil? Is there any peace

In ever climbing up the climbing wave?.

Give us long rest or death-dark death or dreamful case."

On the other hand, the pain of impeded effort, unfulfilled aspiration, will often act as a stimulant to energy, and become the source of progressively completed powers.

"Still, 'tis the check that gives the leap its lift."

The moral of this qualification of the Aristotelian doctrine is not that we should revert to the theory which Aristotle has once for all disposed of—that pleasure is by its nature evil-but that we should hold more firmly to the doctrine which he has done more than any other writer to establish, viz. that pleasure, though an excellent test of the partial realization of the self, can never be taken as a sufficient guide to the particular mode of activity which is at the moment desirable. The nature of things offers no guarantee that the course which is the most truly desirable is that which is in the line of the least resistance or

the greatest pleasure. On the contrary, the fact that what is truly desirable is progress towards the fuller realization of a self which is never completely what it has in it to be, is sufficient proof that an element of pain will always mingle with human effort, and that no ideal can be more delusive, either from the theoretical or the practical side, than that of a completely frictionless life.

§ 6. Applications of the above Theory.

[X. c. iv. §§ 10 and 11; c. v. §§ 6-11.]

In the succeeding sections the theory of pleasure, as already stated, is applied to explain (a) the fact that every one desires pleasure, and (b) the distinction between true and false pleasure.

(a) As pleasure, then, is a necessary accompaniment of the activities which constitute life, and as these activities are an object of desire to all men, it is easy to see how all men come to desire pleasure. True, Aristotle seems to leave it still an open question "whether we choose life for the sake of pleasure, or pleasure for the sake of life." But, after what has been already said, this need not cause any difficulty. The discussion throughout has proceeded upon the assumption that what all men desire and make for is life itself, and not any adjunct of life. Their various energies have their source in instincts and impulses directing them to one or other of the elements. of life, and acting with peremptory force before any experience of pleasure resulting from their satisfaction.

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