DEVELOPMENT OF PLEASURE AND PAIN 69 



be very far from the truth to describe the process through 

 which life has reached its present stage of development 

 as an increase only in the number and variety of pleasurable 

 experiences, accompanied by the elimination, or reduction 

 in intensity, of painful states. It must, I think, be admitted 

 that, if the task set before nature is the happiness of men, 

 she has miserably disappointed expectations. When she 

 conferred on them her choicest gifts, she at the same time 

 loaded them with a heavy burden from which other less 

 favoured types are exempt, and she justifies the saying of 

 Dante : 



Quanto la cosa e piu perfetta, 

 Piu senta 1 bene, e cosi la doglienza. x 



This, then, is the sole indisputable fact which we have as 

 yet ascertained. It must be admitted that neither pain 

 nor pleasure is less in our experience to-day than it has 

 been at any previous epoch sufficiently remote to be judged 

 without prejudice. On the contrary, both have very greatly 

 increased. Whether the growth of either has been more 

 vigorous than that of the other ; and whether either exceeds, 

 or at any time has exceeded, the other in quantity, are 

 questions to which no convincing answer can be given. 

 We are hindered by the imperious influence of emotions, 

 which cast their weight sometimes on one side of the scale, 

 and at others on the other, by a complete inability to 

 define what we mean when pleasure and pain are spoken 

 of, and by the want of a standard by which we could 

 measure them, if we knew distinctly what they were. If, 

 then, our criterion is to be the relative proportion of 

 pleasure and pain ; that is to say, the balance which is left 

 over after subtracting the other, we should have no means 

 of deciding whether the life of a man of genius or of a 

 savage, of a savage or an ascidian, is more to be desired 

 or to be feared. 



NOTE. Before proceeding to the next branch of our 

 1 Inf. vi. 107. 



