But not till we find some common measure for sound
and colour and flavour and thought and affection, will it be possible to
compare in any hedonistic scales the pleasures they produce. Yet colour
is to the eye what music is to the ear; and therefore the one word
pleasure is used not unreasonably of both.
Quite similar seems to us the fallacy to which Evolution owes its
seeming simplicity and its popularity. The word "existence" or "life"
(which is the existence of organic beings, about which we are chiefly
concerned), is taken as having one homogeneous meaning, like "heat" or
"warmth;" the only difference being quantitative--a difference of
intensity, of breadth, of duration; not a difference of kind such as
would destroy all common measure. Life is something which we predicate
of the most diversely organized beings, and therefore would seem to be
something the same in all, which they secure in a diversity of ways.
Thus Darwin defines the general good or welfare which should be the aim
of our conduct as "the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in
full health and vigour with all their faculties perfect;" upon which Mr.
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