The Evolution of Morals. 273 



throughout by dominance of the pleasurable. It is 

 pleasure that furnishes the end, the impulse, the 

 standard, the rule, the sanction. " Life is good or bad 

 according as it does, or does not, bring a surplus of 

 agreeable feeling." " Conduct is good or bad according 

 as its total effects are pleasurable or painful."* " Plea- 

 sure, somewhere, at some time, to some being or beings, 

 .... is as much a necessary form of moral intuition 

 as space is a necessary form of intellectual intuition."")* 

 This is thorough-going hedonism, tempered by the 

 theory of a natural codification, or digest, of the laws 

 of pleasure in the organized experiences registered in 

 the nervous system. 



To discuss adequately the ethical value of pleasure 

 would necessitate an examination of what is conveyed 

 by the term. As Mr. Spencer uses it, he includes every 

 form of gratification the joy of one who bears suffer- 

 ing for the benefit of another, and the delight of the 

 glutton in his feast. Give width enough to the mean- 

 ing, and it may embrace at once paradise and the pot- 

 house. 



But, passing from this point, note the confusion be- 

 tween the moral quality and the consequences of its 

 exercise. It may be true that the right always results 

 in a surplus of pleasure ; while it may be false that 

 the surplus of pleasure constitutes the Tightness of the 

 right. The evolutionist is bound to show that the 



The Data of Ethics, 10. t Ibid., 15. 



S 



