ought rather to say that since every formed faculty admits of unimpeded exercise, it follows that whether happiness be the exercise of all these faculties or of some one of them, that exercise must necessarily be more desirable when unimpeded; but unimpeded exercise of faculty is pleasure: a certain kind of pleasure, therefore, will be the supreme good, even though most pleasures should turn out to be bad in themselves." Comparing this with the statement in Book X. c. iii. § 13, we seem in the two books to have contradictory views. In Book VII. the good is said to be " a kind of pleasure;" in Book X. "it seems to be established that pleasure is not the good." As a matter of fact the difference is much less than appears, and is resolvable into the different senses in which "pleasure" is taken. In Book VII. the word is taken in its popular sense of a concrete thing, or the actual exercise of a faculty; in Book X. the philosophical distinction is drawn between the activity itself and the pleasant feeling which is an attribute of it "a superadded end like the grace of youth." In the former sense Aristotle would allow-as who but a fanatic would not?-that the end may be described as a form of pleasure. In the latter sense such an admission would be contrary to the whole teaching of the Ethics, and not merely to a casual statement in Book X.† The extracts given below * I have given Peters' translation to enable the English reader the more easily to identify the passage. † As Professor Stewart rightly says, the formula of VII. is "pleasure is unimpeded exercise of faculty," that of X." pleasure perfects the exercise are taken from the tenth Book, which, in addition to being the clearer and more philosophical, is the earlier and more undoubtedly Aristotelian statement. The discussion falls into three parts: (1) the statement and criticism of current views; (2) Aristotle's view of the conditions and the effect of pleasure; (3) the application of his doctrine as a ground of explanation, (a) of the fact that every one desires pleasure; (b) that pleasures differ in kind. We may take these in their order. § 2. Theories as to the Relation of Pleasure to [X. cc. i. and iii.] Two theories were current in Aristotle's time as to the relation of pleasure to human life. The first (represented by Eudoxus) was that pleasure is the good; the second (represented by Speusippus and the straiter sect of the Platonists) that pleasure no less than pain was an evil, and that the good consisted in freedom from both.* The latter theory Aristotle rejects (1) on the characteristic ground of the universality of the of faculty" (op. cit. ii. p. 221). In what follows, however, he seems somewhat to obscure the point. The difference between the Aristotelian doctrine of Book VII. and that of the Hedonists is not that, according to the one, "the Good (meaning the strenuous performance of the highest duty) is Pleasure;" according to the other, "Pleasure (meaning 'the pleasure of sense) is the Good"—but that according to the former the good life is a pleasant thing, according to the latter it is good because it is pleasant. * Antisthenes the Cynic went further, and declared that he would rather be mad than feel pleased. opposite opinion (c. ii. § 4); (2) because there are good pleasures as well as bad ones (c. iii. § 10). The former he rejects on the grounds (1) that there are things which we desire for their own sake quite apart from the pleasure that they bring to wit: sight, memory, knowledge, virtue (c. iii. § 12); (2) that there are some states that we should not choose however much pleasure they brought with them, thus showing that we have another standard of preference besides the amount of pleasure that an object brings (c. iii. § 12). It is characteristic of Aristotle that he seems here to have the heresy of Speusippus chiefly in view. It was the more repugnant to Greek sobriety, and at the same time to the common sense of mankind. The modern student, on the other hand, naturally turns to the arguments which are here directed against the hedonistic view as the more important part of these criticisms. To the former of the two arguments that are urged against it he will not be inclined to attach much importance. Modern hedonism admits that we seem to desire other things besides pleasure, but explains this as the result of association. Desired. originally “as a means to happiness," they have come to be desired "as a part of happiness.' The latter argument stands on a different footing, and has been constantly employed in our own time. as a proof that pleasures differ in quality, and that the quantity of pleasure" which actions bring independently of the source from which the pleasure is 64 * Mill's Utilitarianisim, p. 55. derived, cannot, as the older hedonists held, be the true standard by which we estimate their value. There are two ways in which, from the hedonist point. of view, it may be met. We may either airily deny with Bentham that pleasures do so differ—“ one pleasure is as good as another if there is as much of it" or we may take facts more seriously, and admit that common sense is right in drawing a clear distinction between kinds of pleasure. This, as is well known, is the course that J. S. Mill adopts. "Few human creatures," he says, echoing Aristotle's statement, "would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base-even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.' It may, however, be questioned whether, in thus endeavouring to extend hedonism to cover the fact that Aristotle urges against it, Mill has not ruined it as a consistent theory. He gets over the difficulty himself by drawing a distinction between happiness and content or satisfaction in the well-known statement that "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied-better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the * Op. cit. p. 12. question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides." But this is only to widen the breach between his own theory and ordinary utilitarianism. For according to the view here stated, happiness consists in the activities that befit a human being, satisfaction in the pleasure which beings undisturbed by ideals obtain from living after their kind, and Mill only stops short of Aristotle in appealing, not to the form of universal life for which nature has marked man out, but first to the unsupported authority of "those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both," and when this seems an insufficient explanation, to the "sense of dignity which all human beings possess in one form or other." † § 3. The Conditions of Pleasure. [X. c. iv.] In chapter iv. Aristotle makes a fresh start, and proceeds to examine the nature of pleasure with the view to a clearer statement of its relation to human happiness. The first part of the discussion that follows is naturally concerned with the conditions of * Op. cit. p. 14. † Extremes meet: the upholder of a " positive" philosophy is driven back, first on authority and then on intuition. In denying that Mill is here inconsistent with his own principles, Professor Stewart seems to illustrate the amiable confusion between a man's character and his opinions which Aristotle alludes to in c. ii. § 1. Undoubtedly Mill's "" standard of conduct was the public good. His theory, however, was that public good was the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and happiness to a consistent utilitarian means ultimately pleasure. 66 |