22 PART I. THE INDIVIDUALISTIC THEORY. CHAPTER II. Subjective EGOISM. NATURALISM is a doctrine both of man and of the universe. And, before the theory of evolution had given a clue to the unity of life and the connexion of man with nature, its ethical doctrine was most commonly worked out in dependence upon an analysis of the impulses and activity of the individual man. This subjective naturalism,' as it has been called,1 though it has been stated in various ways, tends to recognise but one kind of mental contentsensations and their mental residua or ideas, and but one principle of connexion-the laws of asso 1 Ward, Ency. Brit., vol. xxxi. p. 88a. cal hedon ciation. On this theory the attempt has often been made to explain knowledge and rational principles; and conduct and moral principles are held to be explicable by the same method. According to it, sensation and the association of ideas must, in the long run, be adequate for the explanation of the moral consciousness. The function of reason and conscience in determining ends and directing conduct cannot be allowed any such independence as would compel the acceptance of a rational, idealist, or spiritual account of man. Accordingly, if this theory is to work, reason Psychologi or conscience cannot itself be regarded as giving ism. the principle for directing conduct, or as determining its end. The end must therefore be sought either in the feelings of pleasure and pain which accompany both sensory and motor presentations, -perceptions, that is to say, and actions,-or in the more complex, or apparently more complex, emotions of the mind. And the latter may either be themselves reducible to feelings of pleasure or pain accompanying presentations directly pleasurable or painful, and thence transferred by association to other presentations, or they may be regarded as somehow motives to action which may be followed on their own account. The Individualistic Theory, therefore, is not necessarily hedonistic. It admits of a twofold view of the 'natural' man: one which 1. Its theory of action looks upon him as in essence a pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding animal; another which regards him. as having a variety of impulses, some of which are not directed to his own pleasure or avoidance of pain. The former view-psychological hedonism, as it is called-claims to be an exhaustive analysis of the motives of human conduct, perfectly general indeed, but yet valid for every case of action. It denies the possibility of a man acting from any other principle than desire of pleasure or aversion from pain. The theory is, that it is a psychological law that action is motived by pleasure and pain, and that nothing else has motive-power over it. If, then, one pleasure (or avoidance of pain) is chosen in preference to another, it must be either by chance-an alternative which has no ethical significance, no significance, that is, for the guidance of voluntary conduct, or because the one course promises, or seems to promise, the attainment of a greater balance of pleasure than the other, or is actually at the time more pleasant than that other. Thus the view that pleasure is the only motive of human action is really identical, for ethical purposes, with the theory loosely expressed in the law that action follows the greatest ambiguous, pleasure.1 I say 'loosely expressed'; for the law 1 Meaning by 'greatest pleasure,' greatest balance of pleasure over pain, and including the meaning 'least pain.' It is the ex as thus stated really admits of three quite different interpretations, not always distinguished with the referring to precision which the subject requires. consequences of action, (a) In the first place, the law might mean that (a) actual action always follows the course which, as a matter of fact, will in the long run bring the greatest balance of pleasure to the agent. It is evident that there is no ground in experience for maintaining this view. Yet it is a fair interpretation of the 'law' of psychological hedonism, as commonly stated; and it is at least an admissible supposition that this meaning of the phrase has not been without effect upon the uses to which the law has been put by some of its upholders. The second interpretation of the law-namely (b), that or (b) its exaction is always in the direction which seems to the agent most likely to bring him the greatest balance of pleasure, whether it actually brings it or not-is the sense in which it appears to have been most commonly taken when expressed with any degree of accuracy. It is in this sense that -in language which ascribes greater consistency to men's conduct than it usually displays-'interest' is asserted by the author of the 'Système de la pression in terms of feeling of the statement sometimes preferred, that "action follows the line of least resistance". -a statement to which no exception can be taken, nor any importance allowed, till it be translated into definite psychological language. pected con. sequences, nature' to be "the sole motive of human action." 1 The same view is adopted by Bentham; 2 and both James Mill and John Stuart Mill identify desire with pleasure, or an 'idea' of pleasure, in terms which are sufficiently sweeping, if not very carefully weighed; while the will is said to follow desire, or only to pass out of its power when coming under the sway of habit.1 Still another 3 1 "Ainsi lorsque nous disons que l'intérêt est l'unique mobile des actions humaines, nous voulons indiquer par là que chaque homme travaille à sa manière à son propre bonheur, qu'il place dans quelqu'objet soit visible, soit caché, soit réel, soit imaginaire, et que tout le système de sa conduite tend à l'obtenir." Système de la nature (1781), i. 268. 2 "On the occasion of every act he exercises, every human being is led to pursue that line of conduct which, according to his view of the case taken by him at the moment, will be in the highest degree contributory to his own greatest happiness."Constitutional Code, book i. § 2; Works, ix. 5. The continued existence of the species is, Bentham thinks, a conclusive proof of this proposition. 3 Thus, according to James Mill, "the terms 'idea of pleasure' and 'desire' are but two names; the thing named, the state of consciousness is one and the same. The word Desire is commonly used to mark the idea of a pleasurable sensation when the future is associated with it.”—Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, J. S. Mill's edit., ii. 192; cf. Fragment on Mackintosh (1835), p. 389 f. To the same effect J. S. Mill says: 'Desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon; in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact."-Utilitarianism, 7th ed., p. 58. 4 "Will is the child of desire, and passes out of the dominion of its parent only to come under that of habit."-Utilitarianism, |