HOW PLEASURES AND PAINS ARE COMPARED. 233

may safely assert that in proportion as the opposite feelings present themselves to the imagination as equi-distant in time, their stimulating effect (either as attracting or as repelling forces) on will and action will be in the direct ratio of their intensities as mental excitations or feelings, and that, if equal in intensity, the active result will be nil. Here, again, I can only bid the reader make the necessary observations for himself.

In this reasoning one thing has been assumed, namely, that in this anticipation feelings of pleasure and pain shall be represented in the exact proportion of their actual intensity as present feelings. Is this condition always fulfilled? Certainly not. We all know that we are apt sometimes to exaggerate the pleasurable at the expense of the painful, at other times to do the exact contrary. We may thus be said to shrink sometimes from pain more than to be drawn to pleasure, and vice versa. Yet this is only a rough way of expressing the facts, since, strictly speaking, it is the apparent relative magnitudes of the pleasure and pain which undergo a change, not their relative attractive and repellent force. These variations are clearly connected with fluctuations of mental mood and differences of temperament—a subject to be dealt with later on.

Owing to these uncertainties in the direction of imagination, it is not easy to measure pleasures and pains very exactly together in relation to action, for we cannot be sure that the two quantities are present to the mind in the ratio of their actual intensities. Yet by varying the observation amid all changes of mood, one may roughly determine the point at which these deflecting influences of the imagination are at their minimum. And here, it will be found, as I have said, that, equidistance from the present moment being

presupposed, pleasures and pains of equal intensity tend just to counteract one another and so to produce a volitional equilibrium.

One may, indeed, put a meaning into the assertion that pleasures and pains of like intensity do not always balance one another. It is a fact, as I hope to show by-and-by, that our relative sensibility to pleasurable and painful stimuli varies considerably, so that pleasant objects which at one time more than compensate us for the pain of attaining them at other times fail to do so, and so on. We may say, then, that given certain internal conditions (namely, a depressed mental tone), the causes or sources of pleasure fail to counteract those of pain in the ratio of their normal or medium values. Yet this advantage on the side of pain is, as I shall show, no constant one. Further, it is manifestly incorrect to say that even in this case a quantity of pain more than balances an equal quantity of pleasure. The pleasure and pain which are felt to be equivalent are still equal in intensity; it is simply the relative value of the external stimuli which has undergone a change.

It appears, then, that the pessimist in vain seeks a ground for his creed in the supposition that pain has some natural advantage over pleasure, owing to which a given intensity of pleasure and of pain leaves the subject worse off than before. We must accept the fact that pain is just as bad as pleasure is good, and no worse than this.1

1 I do not here raise the question whether the average or the maximum intensity of pain exceeds that of pleasure. Some of the last century optimists (e.g. Hartley and Adam Smith), appear to have conceded both of these points. The question does not readily admit of solution. It is obvious that in relation to the worth of life, this point would have to be discussed in connection with a second, namely the comparative frequency of pleasures and pains.

ANALYSIS OF ENNUI.

235

The last point to be alluded to, in connection with the pessimists' theory of pleasure and pain, is the place which ennui fills in their system. Schopenhauer seems to regard ennui as equally fundamental with the state of desire. As soon as the moment's desire is satisfied, and no new scope for volition presents itself, we lapse into ennui. The life which we have willed to possess thus becomes, in the moment of attainment, a burden. Ennui is thus the other bleak and dreary pole of existence, which confronts that of tormenting desire.

Now this view of ennui as something fundamental, seems to me plainly opposed to the facts. The lower animals do not seem to experience ennui. The cessation of desire in their case is followed by a state of quiescence which, by a certain fiction of imagination, perhaps, we are apt to call contentment.1 Ennui begins as soon as imagination, and the power of conceiving pleasurable activities, is sufficiently developed. Thus a dog which, after having been shut indoors some time, sighs as he lies stretched out before the unappreciated kitchen fire, may reasonably be supposed to feel ennui just because it feels a vague longing for outdoor activity. In our own case ennui is clearly connected with a craving for activities which are only faintly defined in the imagination. The child is afflicted with ennui when it indistinctly imagines some grateful occupation without perceiving it as a present possibility. The man of idle life becomes a prey to ennui when he vaguely pictures to himself a more active existence without being roused to shape this longing into a definite purpose.

1 I do not mean by this that the average emotional condition of the lower animals in their hours of quiescence is of a perfectly neutral complexion on the contrary, I hold that in the case of a healthy organism there is a considerable average balance of pleasurable sensation.

Ennui thus has for its necessary condition nascent desire and indistinct representation of pleasure. In truth, it may be said to be the penalty inflicted on us for the nonfulfilment of some normal function, or the reminder which is given us by the natural impulse of an organ to discharge its recruited store of energy. Hence, so far from regarding it as primary, and the activity which it is fitted to prompt as secondary, it would be much more correct to view this activity as the primary condition, and ennui as secondary and dependent on this. In short, the activity follows its proper impulse (whether a blind instinct or a conscious desire), and ennui is simply an occasional incident in the process.

HOW THE PESSIMISTS TREAT TESTIMONY. 237

CHAPTER X.

THE EMPIRICAL BASIS OF PESSIMISM.

In the two preceding chapters I have attempted to show that the scientific basis of pessimism as presented in the writings of Schopenhauer and Hartmann is not a very stable one. Let us now look briefly at the 'empirical or à posteriori proof which they offer as supplementary to the scientific. In criticising this I shall deal principally with Hartmann, who has elaborated this side of pessimism much more carefully than his predecessor. In fact, as we have seen, Schopenhauer rather despised the argument from observation, though he admitted its possibility and validity, being quite satisfied with his à priori demonstration.

First of all, then, let us look at the way in which Hartmann sets about proving that human life, as it now exists, is a preponderance of misery. We are here at once struck by the fact that the author rejects individual testimony as an untrusworthy source of information on the subject. Men are disposed to magnify the value of life through the very action of unconscious will. This mode of settling the question has at least the mefit of boldness. While professing to accept the facts of life as determining its value, the writer cuts off the surest avenue to the facts. And on what grounds? By assuming that very preponderance of evil which he is undertaking to prove. If we already know