§ 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 organism— the 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, 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 facultyand, 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 ease." 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. Pleasure is merely the sign that one or other of these has attained its object, and that we have lived to purpose. The doctrine that it is pleasure, or, more correctly, the idea of pleasure, which normally stimulates to action is, as Wallace says, on a par with the converse doctrine that it is present uneasiness of desire which determines to voluntary action; and this, as we have seen, is incompatible with Aristotle's view that there are activities which are preceded by no feeling of want or pain. (b) In view of the above theory of pleasure we can further understand how pleasures differ from one another in worth. According to our theory, activities are not valuable because they produce pleasure, but pleasure is valuable according to the kind of activity which it accompanies. If the question is put where we are to look for the standard of activity, and therefore of pleasure, we are referred to the good man (c. v. § 10). His pleasures are the only ones that are pleasant in the true and proper sense of the word. Taken by themselves these words might seem to be a mere evasion, and to carry us no further than the Utilitarian appeal to the authority of the man who has had experience of both kinds.† Taken, however, in connexion with all that has already been said of the good man as the individual embodiment of the system of life to which man's true nature points, it will be seen to be more than this. The true standard is not the individual who chances for the moment to * Lectures and Essays, p. 347. † See p. 193 foll. above. |