DEVELOPMENT OF PLEASURE AND PAIN 49 



man is free to live as he likes, so far as he does not thereby 

 prevent his neighbours from doing likewise. Money is of 

 no value. 



The same extreme contrast of opinion divides the English 

 man of to-day from the Russian, of whatever rank or con 

 dition either may be noble or peasant, rich or poor, learned 

 or illiterate. To the first, the social order is an almost 

 unmixed good, and every stage in its development a gain ; 

 to the other, it is an unmixed evil, and the only refuge from 

 despair lies in the prospect of destroying all vestiges of it, 

 and beginning afresh with a clean slate. 



If either of these directly opposed views rested on a rational 

 foundation, we should expect to find them organically con 

 nected with different schools of ethical thought. Consis 

 tency seems to demand that those who make happiness the 

 proper end of conduct should be of the opinion that it is 

 at least attainable ; but this is far from being the case. 

 Hegesias, who represented the uncompromising Hedonism 

 of the Cyrenaics, held that Happiness is altogether im 

 possible, for the body is full of sufferings of all kinds, with 

 which the soul must sympathize, and be distressed. Fate 

 often defeats our hopes, and happiness is a delusion. 1 Of 

 this philosopher it is recorded that Ptolemy forbade his 

 lectures, because many men on hearing them committed 

 suicide. The Stoic, on the contrary, to whom pleasure of all 

 kinds was indifferent, did not condemn life ; and, as we have 

 seen, Epictetus went so far as to deny the existence of evil. 



Again, though the beliefs and the literature of different 

 ages and societies are usually pervaded by a distinct general 

 tone, there is probably none in which we do not find numerous 

 contradictions. The view of life taken by the Greeks and 

 the Hebrews was almost uniformly cheerful; but Homer, 

 himself the brightest and most genial of poets, tells us that 

 man is the most miserable of all animals that breathe, and 

 he puts the sentiment in the mouth of Zeus, who ought to 

 know. The Old Testament is full of passages to the same 



1 Bitter and Preller, Hist. Phil. Graecae, p. 214. 



BENETT D 



