Ultimate object of organization and life—Sources of
pleasure—Special provision by which the organic organs
influence consciousness and afford pleasure—Point at which
the organic organs cease to affect consciousness, and
why—The animal appetites: the senses: the intellectual
faculties: the selfish and sympathetic affections: the
moral faculty—Pleasure the direct, the ordinary, and the
gratuitous result of the action of the organs—Pleasure
conducive to the development of the organs, and to
the continuance of their action—Progress of human
knowledge—Progress of human happiness.
The object of structure is the production of function. Of the two
functions combined in the living animal, one is wholly subservient
to the other. To build up the apparatus of the animal life, and to
maintain it in a condition fit for performing its functions, is the
sole object of the existence of the organic life. What then is the
object of the animal life? That object, whatever it be, must be the
ultimate end of organization, and of all the actions of which it is the
seat and the instrument.
Two functions, sensation and voluntary motion, are combined in the
animal life. Of these two functions, the latter is subservient to the
former: voluntary motion is the servant of sensation, and exists only
to obey its commands.
Is sensation, then, the ultimate object of organization? Simple
sensation cannot be an ultimate object, because it is invariably
attended with an ultimate result; for sensation is either pleasurable
or painful. Every sensation terminates in a pleasure or a pain.
Pleasure or pain, the last event in the series, must then be the final
end.
Is the production of pain the ultimate object of organization? That
cannot be, for the production of pain is the indirect, not the
direct,—the extraordinary, not the ordinary, result of the actions
of life. It follows that pleasure must be the ultimate object, for
there is no other of which it is possible to conceive. The end of
organic existence is animal existence; the end of animal existence
is sentient existence; the end of sentient existence is pleasurable
existence; the end of life therefore is enjoyment. Life commences with
the organic processes; to the organic are superadded the animal; the
animal processes terminate in sensation; sensation ends in enjoyment;
it follows, that enjoyment is the final end. For this every organ is
constructed; to this every action of every organ is subservient; in
this every action ultimately terminates.
And without a single exception in the entire range of the sentient
creation, the higher the organized structure the greater the enjoyment,
mediately or immediately, to which it is subservient. From its most
simple to its most complex state, every successive addition to
structure, by which function is rendered more elevated and perfect,
proportionally increases the exquisiteness of the pleasure to which the
function ministers, and in which it terminates.
Pleasure is the result of the action of living organs, whether
organic or animal; pleasure is the direct, the ordinary, and the
gratuitous result of the action of both sets of organs; the pleasure
resulting from the action of the organs is conducive to their complete
development, and thereby to the increase of their capacity for
affording enjoyment; the pleasure resulting from the action of the
organs, and conducive to their development, is equally conducive to the
perpetuation of their action, and consequently to the maintenance of
life; it follows not only that enjoyment is the end of life, but that
it is the means by which life is prolonged. Of the truth of each of
these propositions, it will be interesting to contemplate the plenitude
of the proof.
1. In the first place, pleasure is the result of the action of the
organic organs. It has indeed been shown that the very character by
which the action of these organs is distinguished is that they are
unattended with consciousness. Nevertheless, by a special provision,
consciousness is indirectly connected with the processes of this
class, limited in extent indeed, and uniformly terminating at a
certain point; but the extent and the limitation alike conducing to
the pleasurableness of its nature. And this is an adjustment in the
constitution of our frame which is well deserving of attention.
Organic processes are dependent on a peculiar influence derived from
that portion of the nervous system distinguished by the term organic.
The organic nerves, distributed to the organic organs, take their
origin and have their chief seat in the cavities that contain the main
instruments of the organic life, namely, the chest and abdomen (see
chap. v.). As will be fully shown hereafter, these nerves encompass
the great trunks of the blood-vessels that convey arterial blood
to the organic organs. In all its ramifications through an organic
organ, an arterial vessel is accompanied by its organic nerve; so that
wherever the capillary arterial branch goes, secreting or nourishing,
there goes, inseparably united with it, an organic nerve, exciting and
governing.
Among the peculiarities of this portion of the nervous system, one
of the most remarkable is, that it is wholly destitute of feeling.
Sensibility is inseparably associated with the idea commonly formed of
a nerve. But the nervous system consists of two portions, one presiding
over sensation and voluntary motion, hence called the sentient and
the motive portions; the other destitute of sensation, but presiding
over the organic processes, hence called the organic portion. If the
communication between the organic organ and the organic nerve be
interrupted, the function of the organ, whatever it be, is arrested.
Without its organic nerves, the stomach cannot secrete gastric juice;
the consequence is, that the aliment is undigested. Without its organic
nerves, the liver cannot secrete bile, the consequence is, that the
nutritive part of the aliment is incapable of being separated from its
excrementitious portion. The organic organ receives from its organic
nerve an influence, without which it cannot perform its function;
but the nerve belonging to this class neither feels nor communicates
feeling, and hence it imparts no consciousness of the operation of any
process dependent upon it. Yet there is not one of these processes that
does not exert a most important influence over consciousness. How? By a
special provision, as curious in its nature as it is important in its
result.
Branches of sentient nerves are transmitted from the animal to the
organic system, and from the organic to the animal; and an intimate
communication is established between the two classes. The inspection
of fig. XVI. will illustrate the mode in which this communication is
effected. A B represents a portion of the spinal cord (one of the
central masses of the sentient system), covered with its membranes. The
part here represented is a front view of that portion of the spinal
cord which belongs to the back, and which is technically called the
dorsal portion.
[Illustration: Fig. XVI.]
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, the second, &c. ribs with the corresponding
dorsal (sentient) nerves, _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, _e_, _f_, _g_, _h_, going
out to supply their respective organs with sensation.
C D E, a portion of the main trunk of the organic (non-sentient) nerve,
commonly called the Great Sympathetic.
F G H, the membrane of the spinal cord cut open and exposing I K, the
spinal cord itself, L, the anterior branch of one of the dorsal nerves,
arising from the anterior surface of the spinal cord by several bundles
of fibres.
M, the posterior branch of the same nerve, arising in like manner from
the posterior surface of the spinal cord by several branches of fibres.
The anterior and posterior branches uniting to form one trunk N.
Two branches, P Q, sent off from the spinal (sentient) trunk to unite
with the organic (non-sentient) trunk.
R S T U V W, other branches of the sentient, connected with the
branches of the non-sentient nervous trunks in the same mode.
X Y, the main trunk of the sympathetic (non-sentient) nerve cut across
and turned aside, in order that the parts beneath it (P N) may be more
distinctly seen.
From this description, it is apparent that each sentient nerve,
before it goes out to the animal organs, to which it is destined to
communicate sensation, sends off two branches to the organic or the
non-sentient. These sentient nerves mix and mingle with the insensible
nerves; accompany them in their course to the organic organs, and
ramify with them throughout their substance. It is manifest, then,
that sentient nerves, that nerves not necessary to the organic
processes, having, as far as is known, nothing whatever to do with
those processes, enter as constituent parts into the composition of the
organic organs. What is the result? That organic organs are rendered
sentient; that organic processes, in their own nature insensible,
become capable of affecting consciousness. What follows? What is the
consciousness excited? Not a consciousness of the organic process.
Of that we still remain wholly insensible. Not simple sensation. The
result uniformly produced, as long as the state of the system is that
of health, is pleasurable consciousness. The heart sends out to the
organs its vital current. Each organ, abstracting from the stream the
particles it needs, converts them into the peculiar fluid or solid
it is its office to form. The stomach, from the arterial streamlets
circulating through it, secretes gastric juice; the liver, from the
venous streamlets circulating through it, secretes bile. When these
digestive organs have duly prepared their respective fluids, they
employ them in the elaboration of the aliment. We are not conscious
of this elaboration, though it go on within us every moment; but is
consciousness not affected by the process? Most materially. Why?
Because sentient mingle with organic nerves; because the sentient
nerves are impressed by the actions of the organic organs. And how
impressed? As long as the actions of the organic organs are sound,
that is, as long as their processes are duly performed, the impression
communicated to the sentient nerves is in its nature agreeable; is,
in fact, THE PLEASURABLE CONSCIOUSNESS WHICH CONSTITUTES THE FEELING
OF HEALTH. The state of health is nothing but the result of the
due performance of the organic organs: it follows that the feeling
of health, the feeling which is ranked by every one among the most
pleasurable of existence, is the result of the action of organs of
whose direct operations we are unconscious. But the pleasurable
consciousness thus indirectly excited is really the consequence of a
special provision, established for the express purpose of producing
pleasure. Processes, in their own nature insensible, are rendered
sentient expressly for this purpose, that, over and above the special
object they serve, they may afford enjoyment. In this case, the
production of pleasure is not only altogether gratuitous, not only
communicated for its own sake, not only rested in as an ultimate
object, but it is made to commence at the very confines of life; it is
interwoven with the thread of existence: it is secured in and by the
actions that build up and that support the very framework, the material
instrument of our being.
But if the communication of sensibility to processes in their own
nature incapable of exciting feeling, for the purpose of converting
them into sources of pleasurable consciousness, indicate an express
provision for the production of enjoyment, that provision is no less
exemplified in the point at which this superadded sensibility is made
to cease.
Some of the consequences of a direct communication of consciousness
to an organic process have been already adverted to. Had the eye,
besides transmitting rays of light to the optic nerve, been rendered
sensible of the successive passage of each ray through its substance,
the impression excited by luminous bodies, which is indispensable to
vision, the ultimate object of the instrument, if not wholly lost,
must necessarily have become obscure, in direct proportion to the
acuteness of this sensibility. The hand of the musician could scarcely
have executed its varied and rapid movements upon his instrument, had
his mind been occupied at one and the same instant with the process
of muscular contraction in the finger, and the idea of music in the
brain. Had the communication of such a twofold consciousness been
possible, in no respect would it have been beneficial, in many it would
have been highly pernicious; and the least of the evils resulting
from it would have been, that the inferior would have interrupted the
superior faculty, and the means deteriorated the end. But in some
cases the evil would have been of a much more serious nature. Had we
been rendered sensible of the flow of the vital current through the
engine that propels it; were the distension of the delicate valves that
direct the current ever present to our view; by some inward feeling
were we reminded, minute by minute, of the progress of the aliment
through the digestive apparatus, and were the mysterious operations
of the organic nerves palpable to sight, the terror of the maniac,
who conceived that his body was composed of unannealed glass, would
be the ordinary feeling of life. Every movement would be a matter of
anxious deliberation; and the approach of every body to our own would
fill us with dismay. But adjusted as our consciousness actually is,
invariably the point at which the organic process begins is that at
which sensation ends. Had sensation been extended beyond this point, it
would have been productive of pain: at this point it uniformly stops.
Nevertheless, by the indirect connexion of sensation with the organic
processes, a vast amount of pleasure might be created: a special
apparatus is constructed for the express purpose of establishing the
communication. There is thus the twofold proof, the positive and the
negative, the evidence arising as well from what they do, as from
what they abstain from doing, that the organic processes are, and are
intended to be, sources of enjoyment.
But the production of pleasure, commencing at this the lowest point
of conscious existence, increases with the progressive advancement of
organization and function.
The appetite for food, and the voluntary actions dependent upon it,
may be considered as the first advancement beyond a process purely
organic. The function by which new matter is introduced into the
system and converted into nutriment, is partly an animal and partly an
organic operation. The animal part of it consists of the sensations of
hunger and thirst, by which we are taught when the wants of the system
require a fresh supply of aliment, together with the voluntary actions
by which the aliment is introduced into the system. The organic part
of the function consists of the changes which the aliment undergoes
after its introduction into the system, by which it is converted into
nutriment. Sensations always of a pleasurable nature arise indirectly
in the manner already explained, from the due performance of the
organic part of the function; but pleasure is also directly produced by
the performance of the animal part of it. Wholesome food is grateful;
the satisfaction of the appetite for food is pleasurable. Food is
necessary to the support of life; but it is not indispensable to the
maintenance of life that food should be agreeable. Appetite there
must be, that food may be eaten; but the act of eating might have
been secured without connecting it with pleasure. Pleasure, however,
is connected with it, first directly, by the gratefulness of food,
and secondly indirectly, by the due digestion of the food. And the
annexation of pleasure in this twofold mode to the performance of the
function of nutrition is another case of the gratuitous bestowment of
pleasure; another instance in which pleasure is communicated for its
own sake, and rested in as an ultimate object. Pleasures of this class
are sometimes called low; they are comparatively low; but they are not
the less pleasures, because they are exceeded in value by pleasures of
a nobler nature. Man may regard them with comparative indifference,
because he is endowed with faculties which afford him gratifications
superior in kind and larger in amount; but it is no mark of wisdom to
despise and neglect even these: for they are annexed to the exercise
of a function which is the first to exalt us above a merely organic
existence; they are the first pleasures of which, considered merely as
sentient creatures, we are susceptible; they amount in the aggregate to
an immense sum; and they mark the depth in our nature in which are laid
the fountains of enjoyment.
Organs of sense, intellectual faculties, social affections, moral
powers, are superadded endowments of a successively higher order:
at the same time, they are the instruments of enjoyment of a nature
progressively more and more exquisite.
An organ of sense is an instrument composed of a peculiar arrangement
of organized matter, by which it is adapted to receive from specific
agents definite impressions. Between the agent that produces and the
organ that receives the impression, the adaptation is such, that the
result of their mutual action is, in the first place, the production of
sensation, and, in the second place, the production of pleasure. The
pleasure is as much the result as the sensation. This is true of the
eye in seeing, the ear in hearing, the hand in touching, the organ of
smell in smelling, and the tongue in tasting. Pleasure is linked with
the sense; but there might have been the sense without the pleasure.
A slight difference in the construction of the organ, or in the
intensity of the agent, would not merely have changed, it would even
have reversed the result; would have rendered the habitual condition of
the eye, the ear, the skin, not such as it now is in health, but such
as it is in the state of inflammation. But the adjustment is such as
habitually to secure that condition of the system in which every action
that excites sensation produces pleasure as its ordinary concomitant;
and the amount of enjoyment which is thus secured to every man, and
which every man without exception actually experiences in the ordinary
course of an ordinary life, it would be beyond his power to estimate
were he always sensible of the boon; but the calculation is altogether
impossible, when, as is generally the case, he merely enjoys without
ever thinking of the provisions which enable him to do so.
But if the pleasures that arise from the ordinary operations of sense
form, in the aggregate, an incalculable sum, how great is the accession
brought to this stock by the endowments next in order in the ascending
scale, namely, the intellectual faculties!
There is one effect resulting from the operation of the intellectual
faculties on the senses that deserves particular attention. The higher
faculties elevate the subordinate in such a manner as to make them
altogether new endowments. In illustration of this, it will suffice
to notice the change wrought, as if in the very nature of sensation,
the moment it becomes combined with an intellectual operation, as
exemplified in the difference between the intellectual conception of
beauty, and the mere perception of sense. The grouping of the hills
that bound that magnificent valley which I behold at this moment spread
out before my view; the shadow of the trees at the base of some of
them, stretching its deep and varied outline up the sides of others;
the glancing light now brightening a hundred different hues of green
on the broad meadows, and now dancing on the upland fallows; the
ever-moving, ever-changing clouds; the scented air; the song of birds;
the still more touching music which the breeze awakens in the scarcely
trembling branches of those pine trees,—the elements of which this
scene is composed, the mere objects of sense, the sun, the sky, the
air, the hills, the woods, and the sounds poured out from them, impress
the senses of the animals that graze in the midst of them; but on their
senses they fall dull and without effect, exciting no perception of
their loveliness, and giving no taste of the pleasures they are capable
of affording. Nor even in the human being, whose intellectual faculties
have been uncultivated, do they awaken either emotions or ideas; the
clown sees them, hears them, feels them no more than the herds he
tends: yet in him whose mind has been cultivated and unfolded, how
numerous and varied the impressions, how manifold the combinations, how
exquisite the pleasures produced by objects such as these!
And from the more purely intellectual operations, from memory,
comparison, analysis, combination, classification, induction, how
still nobler the pleasure! Not to speak of the happiness of him who,
by his study of natural phenomena, at length arrived at the stupendous
discovery that the earth and all the stars of the firmament move, and
that the feather falls to the ground, by the operation of one and the
same physical law; nor of the happiness of him who sent his kite into
the cloud, and brought down from its quiet bed the lightning which
he suspected was slumbering there; nor of the happiness of him who
concentrated, directed, and controlled that mighty power which has
enabled the feeble hand of man to accomplish works greater than have
been feigned of fabled giant; which has annihilated distance; created,
by economizing time; changed in the short space in which it has been in
operation the surface of the habitable globe; and is destined to work
upon it more and greater changes than have been effected by all other
causes combined; nor of the happiness of him who devoted a longer life
with equal success to a nobler labour, that of REARING THE FABRIC OF
FELICITY BY THE HAND OF REASON AND OF LAW. The intellectual pleasures
of such men as Newton, Franklin, Watt, and Bentham, can be _equalled_
only by those who possess equal intellectual power, and who put forth
equal intellectual energy: to be greatly happy as they were, it were
necessary to be as highly endowed; but to be happy, it is not necessary
to be so endowed. In the ordinary intellectual operations of ordinary
men, in their ordinary occupations, there is happiness. Every human
being whose moments have passed with winged speed, whose day has been
short, whose year is gone almost as soon as it seemed commenced, has
derived from the exercise of his intellectual faculties pleasures
countless in number and inestimable in value.
But the sympathetic pleasures, out of which grow the social, are of
a still higher order even than the intellectual. The pleasures that
result from the action of the organic organs, from the exercise of the
several senses, and from the operation of the intellectual faculties,
like the sensations in which they arise, belong exclusively to the
individual being that experiences them, and cannot be communicated
to another. Similar sensations and pleasures may be felt by beings
similarly constituted; but the actual sensations and pleasures afforded
by the exercise of a person's own organs and faculties are no more
capable of becoming another's than his existence. These, then, are
strictly the selfish pleasures; and the provision that has been made
for securing them has been shown.
But there are pleasures of another class, pleasures having no relation
whatever to a person's own sensation or happiness; pleasures springing
from the perception of the enjoyment of others. The sight of pleasure
not its own affects the human heart, provided its state of feeling be
natural and sound, just as it would be affected were it its own. Not
more real is the pleasure arising from the gratification of appetite,
the exercise of sense, and the operation of intellect, than that
arising from the consciousness that another sentient being is happy.
Pleasures of this class are called sympathetic, in contradistinction to
those of the former class, which are termed selfish.
There are then two principles in continual operation in the human
being, the selfish and the sympathetic. The selfish is productive of
pleasure of a certain kind; the sympathetic is productive of pleasure
of another kind. The selfish is primary and essential; the sympathetic,
arising out of the selfish, is superadded to it. And so precisely
what the animal life is to the organic, the sympathetic principle is
to the selfish; and just what the organic life gains by its union
with the animal, the mental constitution gains by the addition of
the sympathetic to the selfish affection. The analogy between the
combination in both cases is in every respect complete. As the organic
life produces and sustains the animal, so the sympathetic principle
is produced and sustained by the selfish. As the organic life is
conservative of the entire organization of the body, so the selfish
principle is conservative of the entire being. As the animal life is
superadded to the organic, extending, exalting, and perfecting it,
so the sympathetic principle is superadded to the selfish, equally
extending, exalting, and perfecting it. The animal life is nobler than
the organic, whence the organic is subservient to the animal; but there
is not only no opposition, hostility, or antagonism between them, but
the strictest possible connexion, dependence, and subservience. The
sympathetic principle is nobler than the selfish, whence the selfish is
subservient to the sympathetic; but there is not only no opposition,
hostility, or antagonism between them, but the strictest possible
connexion, dependence, and subservience. Whatever is conducive to the
perfection of the organic, is equally conducive to the perfection of
the animal life; and whatever is conducive to the attainment of the
true end of the selfish is equally conducive to the attainment of the
true end of the sympathetic principle. The perfection of the animal
life cannot be promoted at the expense of the organic, nor that of the
organic at the expense of the animal; neither can the ultimate end of
the selfish principle be secured by the sacrifice of the sympathetic,
nor that of the sympathetic by the sacrifice of the selfish. Any
attempt to exalt the animal life beyond what is compatible with the
healthy state of the organic, instead of accomplishing that end, only
produces bodily disease. Any attempt to extend the selfish principle
beyond what is compatible with the perfection of the sympathetic,
or the sympathetic beyond what is compatible with the perfection of
the selfish, instead of accomplishing the end in view, only produces
mental disease. Opposing and jarring actions, antagonizing and mutually
destructive powers, are combined in no other work of nature; and it
would be wonderful indeed were the only instance of it found in man,
the noblest of her works, and in the mind of man, the noblest part of
her noblest work.
No one supposes that there is any such inharmonious combination in
the organization of his physical frame, and the notion that it exists
in his mental constitution, as it is founded in the grossest ignorance,
so it is productive of incalculable mischief. In both, indeed, are
manifest two great powers, each distinct; each having its own peculiar
operation; and the one being subservient to the other, but both
conducing alike to one common end. By the addition of the apparatus of
the animal to that of the organic life, a nobler structure is built
up than could have been framed by the organic alone: by the addition
of the sympathetic to the selfish part of the mental constitution, a
happier being is formed than could have been produced by the selfish
alone. And as the organic might have existed without the animal life,
but by the addition of the animal a new and superior being is formed,
so might the selfish part of the mental constitution, and the pleasures
that flow from it, have existed alone; but by the addition of the
sympathetic, a sum is added to enjoyment, of the amount of which some
conception may be formed by considering what human life would be, with
every selfish appetite and faculty gratified in the fullest conceivable
degree, but without any admixture whatever of sympathetic or social
pleasure. Selfish enjoyment is not common. If any one set himself to
examine what at first view might seem a purely selfish pleasure, he
will soon be sensible that, of the elements composing any given state
of mind to which he would be willing to affix the term pleasurable,
a vast preponderance consists of sympathetic associations. The more
accurately he examine, and the farther he carry his analysis, the
stronger will become his conviction, that a purely selfish enjoyment,
that is, a truly pleasurable state of mind, in no degree, mediately or
immediately, connected with the pleasurable state of another mind, is
exceedingly rare.
But if the constitution of human nature and the structure of human
society alike render it difficult for the human heart to be affected
with a pleasure in no degree derived from—absolutely and totally
unconnected with sympathetic association, of that complex pleasure
which arises out of social intercourse, partly selfish and partly
sympathetic, how far sweeter the sympathetic than the selfish
part; and as the sympathetic preponderates over the selfish, how
vast the increase of the pleasure! And when matured, exalted into
affection—affection, that holy emotion which exerts a transforming
influence over the selfish part of human nature, turning it into the
sympathetic; affection, which renders the happiness of the beloved
object inexpressibly dearer to the heart than its own; affection,
among the benignant feelings of which as there is none sweeter so
there is none stronger than that of self-devotion, nay, sometimes even
of self-sacrifice; affection, which is sympathy pure, concentrated,
intense—Oh how beautiful is the constitution of this part of our
nature, by which the most transporting pleasures the heart receives are
the direct reflection of those it gives!
Nor ought it to be overlooked, that, while nearly all the selfish,
like all the sensual pleasures, cannot be increased beyond a fixed
limit, cannot be protracted beyond a given time, are short-lived in
proportion as they are intense, and satiate the appetite they gratify,
the sympathetic pleasures are capable of indefinite augmentation; are
absolutely inexhaustible; no limit can be set to their number, and no
bound to their growth; they excite the appetite they gratify; they
multiply with and by participation, and the more is taken from the
fountain from which they flow, the deeper, the broader, and the fuller
the fountain itself becomes.
But not only is the mental state of affection in all its forms and
degrees highly pleasurable, but the very consciousness of being the
object of affection is another pleasure perfectly distinct from that
arising immediately from the affection itself. It has been said of
charity, that it is twice blessed, that it blesses alike him that
gives and him that receives; but love has in it a threefold blessing:
first, in the mental state itself; secondly, in the like mental state
which the manifestation of it produces in another; and thirdly, in the
mental state inseparable from the consciousness of being the object of
affection. And this reflex happiness, this happiness arising from the
consciousness of being the object, is even sweeter than any connected
with being the subject of affection.
In like manner there is pleasure in the performance of beneficent
actions; in energetic, constant, and therefore ultimately successful
exertions to advance the great interests of human kind, in art, in
science, in philosophy, in education, in morals, in legislation,
in government; whether those exertions are put forth in the study,
the school, the senate, or any less observed though perhaps not
less arduous nor less important field of labour. Exertions of this
kind beget in those for whom, towards those by whom, they are made,
benignant feelings—respect, veneration, gratitude, love. With
such feelings the philosopher, the instructor, the legislator, the
statesman, the philanthropist, knows that he is, or that, sooner or
later, he will be regarded by his fellow men; and in this consciousness
there is happiness: but this is another source of happiness perfectly
distinct from that arising from the performance of beneficent actions;
it is a new happiness superadded to the former, and, if possible,
still more exquisite. Thus manifold is the beneficent operation of the
sympathetic affection: thus admirable is the provision made in the
constitution of our nature for the excitement and extension of this
affection, and, through its instrumentality, for the multiplication and
exaltation of enjoyment!
In affections and actions of the class just referred to, and in the
pleasures that result from them, there is much of the nature which is
commonly termed moral. And the power to which the moral affections and
actions are referred is usually and justly considered as the supreme
faculty of the mind; for it is the regulator and guide of all the
others; it is that by which they attain their proper and ultimate
object. Of whatever pleasure human nature is capable in sensation, in
idea, in appetite, in passion, in emotion, in affection, in action;
whatever is productive of real pleasure, in contradistinction to what
only cheats with the false hope of pleasure; whatever is productive
of pure pleasure, in contradistinction to what is productive partly
of pleasure and partly of pain, and consequently productive not of
pure, but of mixed pleasure; whatever is productive of a great degree
of pleasure in contradistinction to what is productive of a small
degree of pleasure; whatever is productive of lasting pleasure, in
contradistinction to what is productive of temporary pleasure; whatever
is productive of ultimate pleasure, in contradistinction to what is
productive of immediate pleasure, but ultimate pain; this greatest and
most perfect pleasure it is the part of the moral faculty to discover.
In the degree in which the operation of this faculty is correct and
complete, it enables the human being to derive from every faculty of
his nature the greatest, the purest, the most enduring pleasure; that
is, the maximum of felicity. This is the proper scope and aim of the
moral faculty; to this its right exercise is uniformly conducive; and
this, as it is better cultivated and directed, it will accomplish in
a higher degree, in a continual progression, to which no limit can
be assigned. But if the operation of this faculty be to render every
other in the highest degree conducive to happiness, conformity to
the course of conduct required by it, must of course be that highest
happiness. Conformity to the course of conduct pointed out by the
moral faculty as conducive in the highest degree to happiness is moral
excellence, or, in the definite and exact sense of the word, virtue.
And in this sense it is that virtue is happiness. It is because it
discriminates the true sources of happiness, that is, directs every
other faculty into its proper course, and guides it in that course to
the attainment of its ultimate object, that the moral faculty is ranked
as the highest faculty of the mind. Supposing the operation of this
faculty to be perfect, it is but an identical expression to say, that
to follow its guidance implicitly is to follow the road that leads to
the most perfect happiness. But, over and above the happiness thus
directly and necessarily resulting from yielding uniform and implicit
obedience to the moral faculty, there is, in the very consciousness of
such conformity, a new happiness, as pure as it is exalted. Thus, in
a twofold manner, is the moral the highest faculty of the mind, the
source of its highest happiness; and thus manifest it is, from every
view that can be taken of the constitution of human nature, that every
faculty with which it is endowed, from the highest to the lowest, not
only affords its own proper and peculiar pleasure, but that each, as
it successively rises in the scale, is proportionately the source of a
nobler kind, and a larger amount of enjoyment.
And the pleasure afforded by the various faculties with which the human
being is endowed is the immediate and direct result of their exercise.
With the exception of the organic organs, and the reason for the
exception in regard to them has been assigned, the action of the organs
is directly pleasurable. From the exercise of the organs of sense, from
the operation of the intellectual faculties, from appetite, passion,
and affection, pleasure flows as directly as the object for which the
instrument is expressly framed.
And pleasure is the ordinary result of the action of the organs; pain
is sometimes the result, but it is the extraordinary not the ordinary
result. Whatever may be the degree of pain occasionally produced, or
however protracted its duration, yet it is never the natural, that
is, the usual or permanent state, either of a single organ, or of an
apparatus, or of the system. The usual, the permanent, the natural
condition of each organ, and of the entire system, is pleasurable.
Abstracting, therefore, from the aggregate amount of pleasure, the
aggregate amount of pain, the balance in favour of pleasure is immense.
This is true of the ordinary experience of ordinary men, even taking
their physical and mental states such as they are at present; but the
ordinary physical and mental states, considered as sources of pleasure
of every human being, might be prodigiously improved; and some attempt
will be made, in a subsequent part of this work, to show in what manner
and to what extent.
It has been already stated that there are cases in which pleasure is
manifestly given for its own sake; in which it is rested in as an
ultimate object: but the converse is never found: in no case is the
excitement of pain gratuitous. Among all the examples of secretion,
there is no instance of a fluid, the object of which is to irritate
and inflame: among all the actions of the economy, there is none, the
object of which is the production of pain.
Moreover, all such action of the organs, as is productive of pleasure,
is conducive to their complete development, and consequently to the
increase of their capacity for producing pleasure; while all such
action of the organs as is productive of pain is preventive of their
complete development, and consequently diminishes their capacity
for producing pain. The natural tendency of pleasure is to its own
augmentation and perpetuity. Pain, on the contrary, is self-destructive.
Special provision is made in the economy, for preventing pain
from passing beyond a certain limit, and from enduring beyond a
certain time. Pain, when it reaches a certain intensity, deadens the
sensibility of the sentient nerve; and when it lasts beyond a certain
time, it excites new actions in the organ affected, by which the organ
is either restored to a sound state, or so changed in structure that
its function is wholly abolished. But change of structure and abolition
of function, if extensive and permanent, are incompatible with the
continuance of life. If, then, the actions of the economy, excited by
pain, fail to put an end to suffering by restoring the diseased organ
to a healthy state, they succeed in putting an end to it by terminating
life. Pain, therefore, cannot be so severe and lasting as materially to
preponderate over pleasure, without soon proving destructive to life.
But the very reverse is the case with pleasure. All such action of the
organs as is productive of pleasure is conducive to the perpetuation
of life. There is a close connexion between happiness and longevity.
Enjoyment is not only the end of life, but it is the only condition
of life which is compatible with a protracted term of existence. The
happier a human being is, the longer he lives; the more he suffers,
the sooner he dies; to add to enjoyment, is to lengthen life; to
inflict pain, is to shorten the duration of existence. As there is a
point of wretchedness beyond which life is not desirable, so there is
a point beyond which it is not maintainable. The man who has reached
an advanced age cannot have been, upon the whole, an unhappy being;
for the infirmity and suffering which embitter life cut it short.
Every document by which the rate of mortality among large numbers of
human beings can be correctly ascertained contains in it irresistible
evidence of this truth. In every country, the average duration of life,
whether for the whole people or for particular classes, is invariably
in the direct ratio of their means of felicity; while, on the other
hand, the number of years which large portions of the population
survive beyond the adult age may be taken as a certain test of the
happiness of the community. How clear must have been the perception of
this in the mind of the Jewish legislator when he made the promise,
THAT THY DAYS MAY BE LONG IN THE LAND WHICH THE LORD THY GOD HATH GIVEN
THEE—the sanction of every religious observance, and the motive to
every moral duty!
Deeply then are laid the fountains of happiness in the constitution
of human nature. They spring from the depths of man's physical
organization; and from the wider range of his mental constitution
they flow in streams magnificent and glorious. It is conceivable that
from the first to the last moment of his existence, every human being
might drink of them to the full extent of his capacity. Why does he
not? The answer will be found in that to the following question. What
must happen before this be possible? The attainment of clear and just
conceptions on subjects, in relation to which the knowledge hitherto
acquired by the most enlightened men is imperfect. Physical nature,
every department of it, at least, which is capable of influencing
human existence and human sensation; human nature, both the physical
and the mental part of it; institutions so adapted to that nature
as to be capable of securing to every individual, and to the whole
community, the maximum of happiness with the minimum of suffering—this
must be known. But knowledge of this kind is of slow growth. To
expect the possession of it on the part of any man in such a stage of
civilization as the present, is to suppose a phenomenon to which there
is nothing analogous in the history of the human mind. The human mind
is equally incapable of making a violent discovery in any department of
knowledge, and of taking a violent bound in any path of improvement.
What we call discoveries and improvements are clear, decided, but
for the most part gentle, steps in advancement of the actual and
immediately-preceding state of knowledge. The human mind unravels the
great chain of knowledge, link by link; when it is no longer able to
trace the connecting link, it is at a stand; the discoverer, in common
with his contemporaries, seeing the last ascertained link, and from
that led on by analogies which are not perceived by, or which do not
impress, others, at length descries the next in succession; this brings
into view new analogies, and so prepares the way for the discernment
of another link; this again elicits other analogies which lead to the
detection of other links, and so the chain is lengthened. And no link,
once made out, is lost.
Chemists tell us that the adjustment of the component elements of
water is such, that although they readily admit of separation and are
subservient to their most important uses in the economy of nature
by this very facility of decomposition, yet that their tendency to
recombination is equal, so that the quantity of water actually existing
at this present moment in the globe is just the same as on the first
day of the creation, neither the operations of nature, nor the purposes
to which it has been applied by man, having used up, in the sense of
destroying, a single particle of it. Alike indestructible are the
separate truths that make up the great mass of human knowledge. In
their ready divisibility and their manifold applications, some of
them may sometimes seem to be lost; but if they disappear, it is only
to enter into new combinations, many of which themselves become new
truths, and so ultimately extend the boundaries of knowledge. Whatever
may have been the case in time past, when the loss of an important
truth, satisfactorily and practically established, may be supposed
possible, such an event is inconceivable now when the art of printing
at once multiplies a thousand records of it, and, with astonishing
rapidity, makes it part and parcel of hundreds of thousands of minds.
A thought more full of encouragement to those who labour for the
improvement of their fellow beings there cannot be. No onward step is
lost; no onward step is final; every such step facilitates and secures
another. The savage state, that state in which gross selfishness seeks
its object simply and directly by violence, is past. The semi-savage or
barbarous state, in which the grossness of the selfishness is somewhat
abated, and the violence by which it seeks its object in some degree
mitigated, by the higher faculties and the gentler affections of our
nature, but in which war still predominates, is also past. To this has
succeeded the state in which we are at present, the so-called civilized
state—a state in which the selfish principle still predominates, in
which the justifiableness of seeking the accomplishment of selfish
purposes by means of violence, that of war among the rest, is still
recognized, but in which violence is not the ordinary instrument
employed by selfishness, its ends being commonly accomplished by the
more silent, steady, and permanent operation of institutions. This
state, like the preceding, will pass away. How soon, in what precise
mode, by what immediate agency, none can tell. But we are already
in possession of the principle which will destroy the present and
introduce a better social condition, namely, the principle at the basis
of the social union, THE MAXIMUM OF THE AGGREGATE OF HAPPINESS; THE
MAXIMUM OF THE AGGREGATE OF HAPPINESS SOUGHT BY THE PROMOTION OF THE
MAXIMUM OF INDIVIDUAL HAPPINESS!