DEVELOPMENT OF PLEASURE AND PAIN 55 



race ; and when M. Dumont expresses his belief that an 

 unfair accumulation of energy in the human race, at the 

 expense of the rest of creation, brings it to pass that, for 

 mankind, the balance inclines on the side of pleasure, we 

 must label him, from our point of view, a decided optimist. 

 Again, our calculations will be confined to the facts of 

 experience ; that is to say, what happens to us during our 

 life on earth. We are sometimes told that any scheme 

 which compensates for earthly pains by a more perfect 

 existence, or complete release, in a world to come, is, as a 

 system, optimistic. But this overlooks the only considera 

 tion which gives the distinction between the opposed beliefs 

 a practical value ; that is to say, the manner in which they 

 determine our attitude in respect of the final ends of human 

 action in this world. Thus, a reviewer in the Hibbert Journal 

 for October, 1903 (p. 150), writes : 



Nothing can be more optimistic than the (Catholic) 

 Church s view of life, and of its possibilities and promise. 

 No optimism could be based on a hypothesis surer or more 

 consonant to reason than hers : that hypothesis being 

 that a doctrine of progress which is to be a basis for 

 optimism must comprise at least the possibility of a Good, 

 to be attained by individual souls after death. 



This is a view which it is equally impossible either to 

 pass by unnoticed or to examine, within the limits of an 

 essay, as thoroughly as it deserves. Even if we dismiss 

 the difficulty that rewards for some men usually imply 

 punishments for others, and assume (what no religion has 

 ever allowed) that every individual, whatever his conduct 

 may have been, is rewarded at the last by perfect happi 

 ness ; the questions still remain, Are the pleasures of this 

 life in excess of the pains ? and, Are they, in any case, 

 worth having ? And by the answers to these questions 

 will men s actions be largely influenced. It would, perhaps, 

 be presumptuous in a layman to attempt to define what 

 is the teaching of the Church on this point ; but no reason 

 able objection can be taken to a comparison between the 

 doctrines of two other great religions, the Hindu and the 



