VALUATIONS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN 123 



principles of morality would be insufficient by themselves, 

 unless they were counterbalanced by the strenuous activities 

 of self-assertion ; and it is essential to the healthy develop 

 ment of a community that neither self-effacement nor 

 self-assertion should attain a strength that would be incon 

 sistent with the even development of both. Their growths 

 must be parallel. For individual characters that type is 

 highest which is at the same time the best and the greatest ; 

 but such men are necessarily uncommon, and an exceptional 

 advance along one line will, at any rate in part, atone for 

 backwardness along the other. 



The two principles may be compared, either with regard 

 to their values as estimated by the general judgement 

 of mankind, or with regard to their influence as deter 

 minants of conduct. They are equally essential to the 

 highest interests of humanity, and it might be expected 

 that in the first respect they would be about equal. As 

 a matter of fact they are so nearly equal that an attempt 

 to ascertain by a reference to public opinion which stands 

 highest is not likely to establish any decisive superiority 

 of one or the other. In one age the man of genius, in 

 another the saint will be most highly honoured, but in the 

 long run their positions will be about equal. 



If, instead of inquiring into their relative values, we regard 

 them in the light of determinants of action, we find that 

 their relative influence varies like their relative value, in dif 

 ferent periods of history. The majority will be influenced in 

 one age by motives of self-effacement, and in another by those 

 of self-assertion ; and the danger of the undue predominance 

 of one or the other is rarely absent. Independently of the 

 difference of direction, the motives of self-assertion are 

 distinguished from those of self-effacement by the nature 

 of the subordinate principles which encourage or justify 

 each of them. The prospect of pleasure, though it does 

 not determine, for they are adopted without calculation, 

 is rarely absent from the aspirations of the ambitious. 

 This prospect is seldom or never an accompaniment to mo 

 tives of morality. The commands of the conscience are 



