DEVELOPMENT OF PLEASURE AND PAIN 59 



clearer idea of what is pleasant than of what is ultimately, 

 or even immediately, advantageous, and the explanation, 

 even if true, would add nothing to our knowledge. 



There is probably no single instinct or structure which 

 in all circumstances is wholly beneficial or wholly noxious, 

 and before we can pronounce that advantage has a decided 

 predominance in the case of any one of them, we must 

 make an exhaustive comparison of the good and the bad 

 effects that will flow from it under all conditions, including 

 an indefinite number that are unknown to us. An exact 

 answer would demand a quantitative analysis, and that, of 

 course, is wholly out of our power ; but we might disregard 

 the difficulty, if there should happen to be any properties of 

 which the worth is so obviously preponderant as to render 

 an exact calculation superfluous. If anywhere, we might 

 hope to find such properties among the highest ethical 

 virtues ; but even these are not valuable (in the sense in 

 which we are now using the word) when in excess, or in all 

 circumstances, or in the absence of their opposites. A 

 nation, in whose citizens the motives of self-sacrifice and 

 obedience were not counterbalanced by self-assertion and 

 independence, would soon cease to exist as a self-sustaining 

 organism. With simpler structures the case is much clearer. 

 Its trunk is, no doubt, of great use to the elephant. When 

 deprived of it the animal dies of starvation. But the mere 

 fact that it is indispensable is a serious disadvantage, and we 

 have to consider, besides, whether the physiological cost 

 of its maintenance is not extravagant. On the whole it 

 might perhaps be better off if it could manage to do without 

 it. And so with all the organs of every species under the 

 sun. We can never pronounce with any degree of certainty 

 of any single structure or tendency that its biological uses 

 more than counterbalance its biological drawbacks. 



Moreover, the same difficulty which prevents us from 

 obtaining an exact valuation of biological advantages pre 

 vents us also from making any exact comparison between 

 advantages and pleasures, both terms being equally in 

 susceptible of quantification ; and, even if a general corre- 



