A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution

CHAPTER IV

Chapter 6236 wordsPublic domain

THE MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THOUGHT, FEELING, AND WILL IN EVOLUTION

Hume on Reason and Passion--The constant connection of Thought with Feeling, and with Feeling as pleasure or pain--The question as to whether Thought or Feeling is primary--Application of answer to previous considerations on the diffusion of Consciousness in Nature--The relation of the concepts of the Pleasurable and Painful to the concept of "End"--Will as a constant accompaniment of Consciousness--Absurdities to which the division of Consciousness into distinct faculties leads--Law of the growth of functional tendency and of pleasure in function--The New as a disturber of equilibrium--The pleasure involved in the overcoming of obstacles--The equilibrium of function as Health--Connection of the pleasure of food-taking with Health--Criticism of Rolph's principle of the Insatiability of Life--Further criticism of Rolph on the Darwinian theory of Growth--The coördinate progress of physiological adaptation with the advancement of knowledge, and with the variation of Feeling and Will--The pleasure of the strongest motive as relative, not absolute--The character of the End in view--The pleasure of anticipation and the pleasure of the event--Criticism of Sidgwick on Hedonism--Criticism of Rolph's theory of Want as universal motive--Suicide--Rest--The diminution of pain with lapse of time as adaptation--Pleasure in pain as pleasure in function--The relation of Health to Happiness--The theory of the absolute Freedom of Feeling--The concepts of Cause and Effect as applied to the evolution of Thought, Feeling, and Will--Application of conclusions to the Teleological Argument 360-382