Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics / With Some of Their Applications

by William Thomas Thornton

2. Emotional, by which are to be understood agreeable moods of the mind, such as, irrespectively of any agreeable idea brought forward simultaneously by association, are produced by music ('for,' as Milton says, 'eloquence the soul, song charms the sense'), by beauty of form or colour, by genial sunshine, by balmy or invigorating air.

3. Imaginative, or pleasures derived from the contemplation of mental pictures.

4. Intellectual, or those consequent on exercise of the reasoning powers.

5. Moral, or those which are alluded to when virtue is spoken of as being its own reward.[2]

That of these several kinds, each of the last four is preferable to any preceding it on the list will, it is to be hoped, be allowed to pass as an unquestioned truth, for to any one perverse enough to deny it, the only answer that can be made is an appeal to observation in proof that all persons who are equally acquainted with the several kinds do exhibit the preferences indicated. Neither, so far as the two kinds first-named alone are concerned, is it possible to go much more deeply into the reasons why emotional pleasures are to be preferred to sensual, than by pointing to the fact that all competent judges of both are observed to like the former best. If all those who are endowed with equal sensitiveness of ear and of palate prefer music to feasting, and would any day give up a dinner at Francatelli's for the sake of hearing a rejuvenescent Persiani as Zerlina, or Patti as Dinorah, the one thing presumable is, that all such persons derive more enjoyment from perfect melody than from perfect cookery, and little else remains to be said on the subject. The same ultimate fact need not, however, limit our inquiry as to the preferableness of imaginative or intellectual to emotional pleasures, and of moral to any of the other three. This admits of, and demands, a more subtle explanation, from which we may learn, not merely that certain preferences are shown, but also why they are shown. The preferences in question are demonstrably not due to the greater poignancy of the pleasures preferred. It is simply not true that the keenest of imaginative pleasures is keener than the keenest of emotional, and still less that the keenest of intellectual is so. The very reverse is the truth. The supremest delight attainable in fancy's most romantic flight is, I suspect, faint in comparison with the sort of ecstasy into which a child of freshly-strung nerves is sometimes thrown by the mere brilliance or balminess of a summer's day, and with which even we, dulled adults, provided we be in the right humour, and that all things are in a concatenation accordingly, are now and then momentarily affected while listening to the wood-notes wild of a nightingale, or a Jenny Lind, or while gazing on star-lit sky or moon-lit sea, or on the snowy or dolomite peaks of a mountain range fulgent with the violet and purple glories of the setting sun. And yet the choicest snatches of such beatitude with which—at least, after the fine edge of our susceptibilities has been worn away by the world's friction—we creatures of coarse human mould are ever indulged, are but poor in comparison with the rich abundance of the same in which some more delicately-constituted organisms habitually revel. If we would understand of what development emotional delight is capable, we should watch the skylark. As that 'blithe spirit' now at heaven's gate 'poureth its full heart,' and anon can

Scarce get out his notes for joy,
But shakes his song together as he nears
His happy home, the ground,

what poet but must needs confess with Shelley, that in his most rapturous dream, his transport never came nigh the bird's? And yet what poet would change conditions with the lark? Nay, what student or philosopher would? albeit the utmost gratification ever earned by either of these in the prosecution of his special calling—in acquiring knowledge, in solving knotty problems, or in scaling the heights of abstract contemplation—is probably as inferior in keenness of zest to that which the poet knows, as the best prose is inferior in charm to the best poetry. It may even be that both poet and philosopher owe, on the whole, more unhappiness than happiness—the one to his superior sensibility, the other to his superior enlightenment, and yet neither would exchange his own lesser happiness for the greater happiness of the lark. Why would he not? It is no sufficient answer to say that in the lark's happiness there are few, if any, imaginative or intellectual ingredients; that it is almost utterly unideal, almost purely emotional, exactly the same in kind, and only higher in degree, than the glee of puppies or kittens at play. The question recurs as forcibly as ever, why—seeing that enjoyment is the one thing desirable, the only thing either valuable in itself, or that gives value to other things—why is it that no intelligent man would accept, in lieu of his own, another mode of existence, in which, although debarred from the joys of thought and fancy, he nevertheless has reason to believe that the share of enjoyment falling to his lot would be greater, both in quantity and sapidity, than it is at present? The following seems to me to be the explanation of the mystery.

It might be too much to say that nothing can please a person who is not pleased with himself, but it is at any rate clear that nothing can greatly please him which interferes with his self-satisfaction. Now imaginative and intellectual enjoyment, each of them, involves the exercise of a special and superior faculty, mere consciousness of the possession of which helps to make the possessor satisfied with himself. It exalts what Mr. Mill aptly terms his sense of dignity, a sense possessed in some form or other by every human being, and one so essential to that self-satisfaction without which all pleasure would be tasteless, that nothing which conflicts with it can be an object of serious desire. In virtue of this special faculty, the most wretched of men holds himself to be superior to the most joyous of larks. To divest himself of it would be to lower himself towards the level of the bird, and to commit such an act of self-degradation would occasion to him an amount of pain which he is not disposed to incur for the sake of any amount of pleasure obtainable at its expense. It is, then, the fear of pain which prevents his wishing to be turned into a lark. He is not ignorant that he would be happier for the metamorphosis, but he dreads the pain that must precede the increase of happiness, more than he desires the increase of happiness that would follow the pain.

The force of these considerations will be equally, or more apparent, on their being applied to analysis of moral pleasures. That these are the most truly precious of all pleasures, is proved by their being habitually more highly prized than any others by all who are qualified to make the comparison. But why are they so prized? Not, as I am constrained, however reluctantly, to admit, on account of their greater keenness as pleasures. It would be at best but well-meaning cant to pretend that the self-approval, the sympathetic participation in other people's augmented welfare, the grateful consciousness of having done that which is pleasing in our Heavenly Father's sight, together with whatever else helps to compose the internal reward of virtue, constitute a sum total of delight nearly as exquisite as that which may be obtained in a variety of other ways. The mere circumstance of there being invariably included in a just or generous action more or less of self-denial, self-restraint, or self-sacrifice, must always sober down the gratification by which virtue is rewarded, and make it appear tame beside the delirium of gladness caused by many things with which virtue has nothing to do. We will charitably suppose that the occupant of a dukedom, who should secretly light upon conclusive proof that it was not his by right, would at once abandon it to the legal heir, and we need not doubt that he would subsequently be, on the whole, well content to have so acted, but we cannot suppose that he would make the surrender with anything like the elation with which he entered on the estate and title. If there were really no pleasure equal to that with which virtue recompenses its votaries, the performance of a virtuous act would always make a man happier than previously; moreover, the greater the virtue, the greater would be the consequent pleasure. But any one may see that an act of the most exalted virtue, far from increasing, often utterly destroys the agent's happiness. Imagine an affectionate father, some second Brutus or second Fitzstephen of Galway, constrained by overwhelming sense of duty to sentence a beloved son to death, or a bankrupt beggaring himself and his family by honestly making over to his creditors property with which he might have safely absconded. Plainly, such virtuous achievement, far from adding to the happiness of its author, has plunged him in an abyss of misery, his only comfort being that in the lowest deep there is, as we shall presently see, a lower deep still. Far from being happier than he was before acting as he has done, he would be much happier if, being vicious instead of virtuous, he had not felt bound so to act. Unquestionably, what either upright judge or honest bankrupt has incurred—the one by becoming a saticide, the other by making himself a beggar—is pure and simple pain, unmitigated by one particle of positive pleasure. Yet it is at the same time certain that the virtue of each has in some form or other given full compensation for the pain it has occasioned, for not only was that pain deliberately incurred in lieu of the pleasure which it has supplanted, but restoration of the pleasure would now be refused, if reversal of the virtuous conduct were made a condition of the restoration. In what, then, does the compensation consist? In nothing else than this, in judge or bankrupt having been saved from pain still greater than that which he is actually suffering. Wretched as he is, infinitely more wretched than he was before there was any call upon him to act as he has done, he is less wretched than he would be if, recognising the obligation so to act, he had not so acted. He has escaped the stings of conscience, the sense of having wronged his neighbour and offended his God; he has escaped, in short, self-condemnation—a torment so intolerable to those so constituted as to be susceptible of it, that hell itself has been known to be, in imagination at least, preferred to it. Mr. Mill's splendid outburst that, rather than worship a fiend that could send him to hell for refusing, he would go to hell as he was bid, will doubtless occur to every reader.

This, however, is all. In both the supposed cases, as in every one in which virtue consists of compliance with a painful duty, the pleasure arising from the practice of virtue cannot in strictness be called pleasure at all. At best it is but a partial negation of pain; more properly, indeed, the substitution of one pain for another more acute. Yet this mere negation, this ethereal inanity, is pronounced by Utilitarianism to be preferable to aught that can come into competition with it. Truly it is somewhat hard upon those who attend to such teaching, to be reproached with their grossness of taste and likened to hogs, for no better reason than their predilection for the lightest of all conceivable diets. Still harder will this seem, when we recollect that Utilitarians are exhorted to be virtuous, less for their own than for other people's sakes. If, indeed, virtue were practised by all mankind, the utilitarian idea of the greatest possible happiness, or, at least, of the greatest possible exemption from unhappiness, would be universally realised. Still, it is in order that they may afford pleasure to the community at large, rather than that they may obtain it for themselves; it is that they may save, not so much themselves, as the community, from pain, that individual Utilitarians are charged to be virtuous. Among those pleasures, whether positive or negative, which it is allowable to them to seek for themselves, the first place is assigned to the pleasure arising from the sense of giving pleasure to others. Thus, not only is it the purest of pleasures that Utilitarianism chiefly recommends for pursuit: even that pleasure is to be pursued only from the purest and most disinterested motives.