200 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



maximum in no way impairs our power of approving or 

 disapproving of actions which fall within the jurisdiction 

 of the moral sense. We could always compare the result 

 with the lowest unit of pleasure, were units of pleasure 

 obtainable. 



We have seen that, in order to measure pleasures, we 

 require units, not only of intensity and duration, but also 

 of some other quality or qualities, the nature of which is 

 still unknown ; that the only units we have at our disposal 

 are those of objective time ; and that those are useless 

 for the purposes of ethical theory. Whether this constitutes 

 a fatal objection to theories which make pleasure, in some 

 form or another, the end of action is a question which 

 cannot be decided except after a comprehensive survey of 

 the application and functions of measurement generally ; 

 and upon this we now propose to enter. All we are entitled 

 to say, as yet, is that we have no means of measuring 

 pleasures, and that they cannot, therefore, be arranged in 

 a scale having universal objective validity. 



Up to this point we have been engaged by the question, 

 Can pleasures be measured ? and we have decided that they 

 cannot. The further question : Is this disability fatal to 

 the claims of hedonistic theories of morality ? involves 

 a much more extended survey of the relations of measure 

 ment to knowledge generally. The first result of such a 

 survey will be to show us that the line of cleavage which 

 divides things that are measurable from things that are not, 

 coincides with the line which divides the external world 

 from ourselves. Temporal duration, dimensions, distances, 

 heat, hardness, weight, sound, colour, taste, and scent 

 qualities which we attribute to objects in the external 

 world are either measurable already, or, if, as in the case 

 of taste and scent, a method of measurement has not yet 

 been discovered, there is every reason to suppose that it 

 is discoverable. On the other side, we have pain and plea 

 sure, emotions, sensations, thought, and will, qualities which 

 we attribute to our personal selves ; and these we neither 



