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cholera. It is also to be observed that the statistics are taken from those classes most liable to serious accidents-those which an Accident Insurance Company would insure only as hazardous risks. Consequently in the upper and middle classes the sick-rate must be well below that figure; and further, there is no doubt that, with better sanitary arrangements, the rate has decreased since the estimate was made. Probably we shall not be understating the case if we estimate the present average sickness of civilised man in middle life at four days a year.

Now what is four days' sickness in comparison with the mental suffering which the average man undergoes in the course of a year? Out of the millions on English soil, how many units are there who have less than four days' anxiety in a year? how many who spend so little as one-ninetieth part of their time in struggles against poverty and hunger, in dread of creditors they cannot pacify, in sorrow for their own or others' misdoings, in unavailing regrets for the past, or in useless forebodings of the future? Ask any man who has his living to earn whether he would be contented to have his mental anxiety limited to four days in the year. He would be more than contented if he could have it limited to ten times that amount. Furthermore, every disease or sickness is accompanied by mental depression which is frequently, if not invariably, responsible for greater suffering than the physical derangement; and even in slight illness involving no danger, there is an amount of mental worry from the enforced confinement, and the consciousness of work left undone, which is frequently harder to hear than the physical inconvenience. It is scarcely necessary to enlarge on this theme, because most persons, as soon as the statement is made, will concur that the perplexities of life, the disappointments and the anxieties, constitute with the mass of humanity a blot on existence far more serious than the pains of limbs or bodies.

Now as to the first part of our postulate, viz. that local ganglionic pleasures predominate over intellectual pleasures. This does require a little more corroboration, nay, it may even appear a paradox embodying nothing but contempt for man's prerogative, mind. It is, however, no paradox, but a truth which the most highly cultured and contemplative person (who is also healthy) will, unless he is holding a brief for the supremacy of the intellect, very soon acknowledge. Nay, he will in all probability go further, and assert that from the satisfaction of one appetite alone (that for food and drink) he has derived more pleasure than from literature and science, or art, or all combined. The pleasures of eating—including in that not merely the pleasures of the palate, but the far more impressive volume of sensation resulting from digestion-do, as a matter of fact, occupy a more important place in man's life, not merely than any other single activity, but than any two or three combined. The sensations arising

in the alimentary canal during the process of digestion and assimilation of food are frequently overlooked, because they are not, like the movements of the higher organs of sense, within the direct control of the brain. But throughout the whole process a stream of impressions is conveyed to the brain corresponding with the manner in which the digestion is proceeding, and these impressions constitute a very large portion of the total from which the happiness or misery of a life is derived. Those unto whom digestion is a healthy and regularly conducted process can with little difficulty verify this observation if they take the next opportunity of observing how very differently some slight trouble presents itself to their mind before and after a good meal. If we consider simply the element of time, the period occupied each day in the actual satisfaction of the appetite and the still longer period occupied in digestion, we must admit there is represented in those processes an amount of quiet enjoyment to which no other function or activity of humanity can show a parallel.

It will, no doubt, be admitted at once that for the poor (that is, for three-fourths of humanity) bodily pleasures are more important than mental. If this is admitted, it is quite sufficient for my present purpose. But those who admit this will, if they reflect, extend the observation to the whole of humanity. As we rise in the scale of wealth intellectual pleasures become possible, but also at the same time the range and variety of the objects ministering to bodily pleasures are indefinitely extended, and the leisure and other adjuncts to their complete enjoyment are present as they are not in the case of the poor, with whom even the enjoyment of food is interfered with by the necessity for labour, and proper digestion is hindered by want of leisure. With wealth-wealth which brings opportunities for intellectual pleasure— come also fresh forms of satisfaction for the animal appetites. There exists no scale by which these two can be measured-no means of comparing the aesthetic values of a bottle of chambertin and a sonnet of Petrarch. It is a difficult matter sometimes for a man of leisure and culture to make up his mind whether he will go to a banquet or to hear Patti as Zerlina. But it is not necessary for us at present to discuss the relative charms of music and dining, and therefore we need not force the delicate problem to its final testwhich of the two a man would rather go without. We have quite sufficient evidence already. For if to the pleasure of consumption and digestion of food we add the subtler pleasures of taste, the pleasure of smoking, the pleasures of exercise, those of repose, and, more intense than all, those connected with the passion of love, we have undoubtedly such a volume of conveniences as no intellectual satisfactions can pretend to approach. It is not possible for us to strike a balance between human joys and human woes, to say by how much the one outweighs the other, nor is it necessary for our present purpose to do so. All that we can be sure of, and all that we require VOL. XX.-No. 114.

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to know, is that, taking mankind as a whole, his conveniences outweigh his satisfactions, and his dissatisfactions outweigh his inconveniences.

Starting, then, from this assumption, let us suppose the mental powers gradually diminished, while the bodily powers remain unimpaired. Suppose that process continued until the mind no longer troubles itself about unseen things, but is content with drawing inferences from actual present sensations, so that the looking forward -the taking thought for the morrow, which is the principal source of human mental suffering-ceases to exist. You then approach the constitution of one of the higher mammalia. It is a constitution in which the chief sources of human pleasure remain untouched, while the chief sources of human pains are either removed or diminished. In such a constitution, as compared with man, the reduction in total pleasures should be relatively small, while the reduction in total pains should be relatively large. Grant to an animal so constituted unstinted food, and it ought in theory to be happier than a human being, the limitation in its pleasures being more than counterbalanced by far greater limitation in its pains.

Imagine a graminivorous quadruped with limitless pasture, and you have a state of things in which you ought to find the maximum of happiness of which the organisation is capable. Granted that the totality of its pleasures would not equal the totality of human pleasures, by far more would the totality of its woes fall short of the totality of human woes. If such an animal cannot taste the pleasures of the knowledge of good and evil, neither has it to taste the miseries of poverty and loneliness, of loss of wife or child, of failure in business, of knowing not where to procure food or where to lay its head. The problem how to make both ends meet never vexes the mind of the ruminant; monotony has no terrors for the ox; no fear oppresses it of another's rivalry; no jealousy of another's success. Even when disease and decay overtake it, it knows nothing of that which makes disease terrible to man-the knowledge that it must end in a separation from those whom he loves.

It would not be fair, however, to take an ideal ruminant with unlimited pasture as a representative of animal life. Other elements than those which affect man's pleasures may have to be taken into account, or those which do affect man's pleasures may acquire a greater modifying influence in the economy of animal life.

Pasture is not, in fact, limitless, and there may be a difficulty in obtaining food, climatic influences may inflict more discomfort on beings who cannot at will alter their covering, or in other ways the conditions of life may be such as to increase the totality of physical suffering. We must, therefore, consider separately the sources of pleasure in the animal world.

The pleasures connected with the maintenance of individual life

hold, of course, the chief place. From the most lowly of the protozoa up to the highest of mammals and insects, pleasure (presumably of increasing intensity) is associated with the consumption and assimilation of food. The earliest type of a nervous system is a collar of cells surrounding the oesophagus, and that type persists with modifications up to the most highly organised mollusca and arthropoda. The earliest function of the nervous system-its chief function throughout all animal life—is to subserve nutrition, and thus the most solid pleasures come to be associated with the assimilation of food, while the greatest inconveniences attend its deprivation. In the lower forms of life, no doubt, this is the only form of enjoyment. Whatever pleasures a medusa may be supposed to possess, they must necessarily all be derived from the actual consumption of food. With further development come special organs adapted to discover by sight, or smell, or hearing, or some other sense the prey intended for food. Here there is another opening for pleasure. All animals which catch their prey have the additional pleasure of the pursuit and the capture, which is one of the keenest, if not the very keenest, of all pleasures; while, on the other hand, ruminants have their own special pleasure in the process of remastication, which is nature's solatium to them for the deprivation of the pleasures of the chase. There are two forms of enjoyment connected with food, the latter possessed by a widely spread family, and the former by all carnivorous animals, neither of which pleasures are shared by man. And taking this into account, together with the fact that the majority of animals can consume with relish more food in proportion to their bulk than man, there seems every reason to believe that in this most important of all elements the pleasure of the average vertebrate is greater than that of man.

In connection with the preservation of the individual life there remain to be considered the pleasures of exercise and sleep. Precisely what amount of pleasure is represented by the latter it is impossible to guess, but the former in the youth of all animals counts for a great deal, and in the majority continues throughout life to afford enjoyment of the keenest description. The fox-terrier is always readier for a walk than his master, and generally enjoys himself more thoroughly on the way. His natural gait is swifter than man's, and all animals of whom that can be said have a great advantage in the amount of pleasure which they derive, or ought to derive, from the use of their limbs. The glory of rapid motion which we can only begin to realise on the box-seat of a coach, or in the movement of skating, must be something much more intense to the chamois or the white-headed eagle. Constantly, throughout the animal world, we notice that delight in the use of muscle and limb which in man scarcely survives his majority, but which in them lasts far into maturity. We are accustomed unconsciously to recognise their prerogative in this respect when we apply the phrase 'animal spirits' to a bɔy

who is full of life and energy, and who enjoys a run over the hills on a breezy day.

Besides the pleasures connected with individual existence, there are the pleasures connected with the perpetuation of the species. Here the lower animals are certainly at a great disadvantage as compared with man. They can have nothing to correspond with that blending of chivalry and common sense, of devotion and friendship, of sensual passion and calm and trustful respect, which constitutes, or ought to constitute, the modern Englishman's love for his wife. Nor can the joys of animal maternity be compared with those of the human mother, who has the development of an intellect to watch as well as growth of limb. But the advantage which man has in these respects is entirely on the mental side. Considered simply as physical processes, the pleasures connected with the perpetuation of the race are probably as great in the case of most vertebrates as in man, while certainly the pains of maternity are immeasurably less.

The majority of the miscellaneous instincts exhibited by animals are directly connected with the preservation of the race, and it is important to consider whether instinctive acts are accompanied by pleasure. If, as we have seen, even reflex acts are accompanied sometimes by pleasure, the probability seems to be that instinctive acts are so accompanied. They are more likely to be than are reflex acts, because the former rise into consciousness, whereas the latter do not; that is to say, instinctive acts are not performed purely mechanically, they require the co-operation of different nerve-centres and the guidance of the head of the nervous system. And originally, no doubt, the great majority of actions now instinctive were done intelligently and deliberately, and have through long usage and through the effects of heredity now come to be done instinctively. Mr. G. H. Lewes, indeed, supposed this lapsed intelligence' to be the origin of all instincts, but Mr. Romanes has shown sufficient ground for believing that some instincts have been developed directly by natural selection out of habits casually and unintelligently adopted, which habits chanced to be beneficial to the species; these he calls primary instincts, and all the others arising from lapsing of intelligence, secondary instincts. Now it seems nearly certain that secondary instincts are accompanied with pleasure, and it is probable that many primary instincts are so accompanied. As a rule, where a habit has been persisted in generation after generation, until it has become almost as mechanical as a reflex act, it seems fair to presume that originally the habit must have been pleasurable, and that, therefore, some reminiscence of the original pleasure still attends its repetition. The act of incubation certainly still seems to give pleasure to the hen, and the ancestral birds who first adopted the troublesome habit can only have done so (one would think)

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