For nothing can be further from scientific fact than that
cross-grained and ill-tempered puritanism identifying pleasure with
something akin to sinfulness. Philosophically considered, Pain is so
far stronger a determinant than Pleasure, that its _vis a tergo_ might
have sufficed to ensure the survival of the race, without the far
milder action of Pleasure being necessary at all; so that the very
existence of Pleasure would lead us to infer that, besides its
function of selecting, like Pain, among life's possibilities, it has
the function of actually replenishing the vital powers, and thus
making amends, by its healing and invigorating, for the wear and tear,
the lessening of life's resources through life's other great Power of
Selection, the terror-angel of Pain. This being the case, Pleasure
tends, and should tend more and more, to be consistent with itself, to
mean a greater chance of its own growth and spreading (as opposed to
Pain's dwindling and suicidal nature), and in so far to connect itself
with whatsoever facts make for the general good, and to reject,
therefore, all cruelty, injustice, rapacity and wastefulness of
opportunities and powers.
Nay, paradoxical though such a notion may seem in the face of our past
and present state of barbarism, Pleasure, and hence amusement, should
become incompatible with, be actually _spoilt by_, any element of
loss to self and others, of mischief even to the distant, the future,
and of impiety to that principle of Good which is but the summing up
of the claims of the unseen and unborn.