To desire, it is essential that the object appear to us good-or rather, to appear to us good, and to appear to us desirable, are truly the same thing. If all things had been uniformly indifferent to all mankind, it is evident that they could not have formed any classes of things as good or evil. What we do not desire may be conceived by us to be good, relatively to others who desire it, but cannot seem to be good relatively to us.' 'As it is not the love or preservation of life, which is unworthy of a true and honourable man, but the love of a life that is inconsistent with nobler objects of desire; it is, in like manner, not the love of pleasure which is unworthy of usfor pleasure, in itself, when arising from a pure source, is truly as pure as the source from which it flows; but the love of pleasure that is inconsistent with our moral excellence. The delight which virtue gives, and which devotion gives, is no small part of the excellence even of qualities so noble as devotion and virtue. We must love pleasure if we love whatever is worthy of being loved.'Dr. Thomas Brown, Phil. of the Human Mind, Bk. I. Part IV. Chap IV. 503 CHAPTER LXIV. ENDS. § 1. In another place we have traced the formation and growth of volition, and in the course of that study have had occasion to notice ends and the part they play in the volitional exercises. Recurring to a former chapter (Chap. XLVI. § 1), we shall find a definition for which we again have use: A motive is that which moves mental energy, considered merely as the cause which sets it in motion; an end is that which is expected to satisfy energy.' It will be necessary now to consider a little more explicitly and carefully the distinction here made. In our previous studies we have seen that volition has at its foundation a dynamic element of energy or power, which is put forth upon occasion. A motive is that which sets this energy in motion, wholly irrespective of results; anything that moves the volitional power is a motive. Now psychological analysis shows that this power is consciously put forth always and only in connection with feeling. Sometimes the feeling is pleasurable, sometimes painful. When it is pleasurable the attention is held, and then the energy is increased and flows more abundantly in the same direction in which it is started; when the feeling is painful the energy, though first stimulated, is presently diminished in quantity and diverted into other directions. The manner in which, by force of association, volitional energy is determined in one direction rather than another, and choice and volition proper arise, has been already narrated and need not be reconsidered here. But whether the selective element of volition is prominent or not, in both the earlier puttings-forth of energy and the more complex and compound volitional movements, the motive of energy, so far as it is conscious, is a pleasure or a pain, that is, a pleasurable or painful feeling. When the nervous vitality is high and the feeling of pleasure is abundant, activity is stimulated outward in all directions. A presentative pleasure engrosses the attention and stimulates energy along the line upon which its expenditure brought pleasure; in that direction an increase of the pleasure is sought. A representative pleasure reproduces the volitional movement which attended its original, and on its presentative side starts the volitional current in the same course as before. In like manner a presentative pain excites action away from or in avoidance of the pain; a representative pain, on its presentative side as an actual present pain (though fainter than its original), does the same. § 2. A motive, then, is a present feeling, involving more or less pain or exigence-not necessarily a feeling characteristically presentative, but at least the presentative side of a representative feeling. Now when we superadd the representative side, we have the elements of an end. A pleasure is experienced; its continuance is desired; associations cement themselves around it. So long as it continues no act of will takes place, but as soon as it abates or departs a want is felt, there is a representation of the pleasure and its attendant cognitions; there are suggested the actions which originally brought on the pleasure, and the current of volition is started in the direction which promises to repeat the experience. The reproduction of the pleasure in fainter degree, together with the felt insufficiency of that pleasure, is the motive, the presentative side of the representative feeling; the knowledge that the feeling is but representative, and the desire to realise that original pleasure with the expectation that it will be realised and repeated, makes the end. A pleasurable feeling, not present in its completeness, but sought as the expected satisfaction of the volitional energy, is an end. Motives may be any feelings whatever which are present and involve some degree of pain or the want of something; ends are only representative pleasurable feelings. § 3. All pleasures, then, may be ends. We have found a pleasurable feeling, it will be remembered, to be one whose continuance is desired, and to obtain which action will take place. Every pleasure must be to some one and at some time an end, else it would not be a pleasure. A catalogue of pleasures would be exactly coincident with a catalogue of ends. On the side of feeling we call an experience a pleasure which, on the side of volition, we call an end. So far as our exposition of pleasures is complete, it is also complete with reference to ends. § 4. After having observed that in their psychological constitution all ends are representative feelings, we may, without con fusion of meaning, understand how, following the divisions of pleasures and pains, ends are divisible into Real or Presentative and Ideal or Representative Ends. The object desired may be either a presentative pleasure, as that of eating, or seeing a landscape, or it may be a representative pleasure, as that of wealth or fame. Considered from this standpoint, the force of such an arrangement is evident. § 5. So also, ends may be divided into Sensational and Emotional, the former being sensational pleasures and the latter emotional. Again, ends may be regarded as Egoistic, EgoAltruistic and Altruistic, in the same manner as pleasures are. Still further following the classifications of pleasures, we may group ends as Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary, the divisions corresponding precisely with the similarly-named classes described. in the preceding pages. In view, however, of the methods of classification soon to follow, the last one should be used with caution, for, if employed carelessly, confusion will be likely to result. The terms Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary should, perhaps, be confined to pleasures and pains. § 6. Ends may be either Self-sufficient or Intermediate. A self-sufficient end is that which the agent seeks for its own sake; what he values and takes pleasure in for itself alone, and not as a means to some other end; as when a man seeks and eats vegetables for the delight of eating them, and not on account of any resultant advantage therefrom. An Intermediate end, on the other hand, is one which is made the stepping-stone to a further end, as when a person seeks vegetables and enjoys eating them because of their anti-scorbutic effects on his system, or because his health generally will be improved thereby. § 7. Some ends are intermediate not only as they extend to a self-sufficient end, but also to another end which is itself but intermediate. There may be a succession or chain of many intermediate ends, one dependent on another, one sought for another, before anything is arrived at which is sought for its own sake; as when a man sells a garment to get money, to buy tools, to till his lands, to obtain a crop, to supply him with food, to gratify his appetite. Here let it be supposed that he seeks to gratify his appetite on its own account with no ulterior end; the end of his selling his garment to get money is only an intermediate end, and it is not only subordinate to the self-sufficient end of gratifying his appetite, but also to the nearer end, intermediate as well, of VOL. II. LL |