GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

ETHICAL THEORY SURVEYED 403
caie can be made out for the view that it is only when I
aim at something other than my pleasure, that I succeed
in obtaining pleasure. Many moralists have pointed out
that to pursue pleasure directly is to miss it. The kingdom
of pleasure, they say, cannot be taken by storm any more
than the kingdom of beauty can be taken by storm.
Pleasure, which evades direct pursuit, sometimes consents
to grace our states of mind when we are actively engaged
inp the pursuit and achievement of something other than
pleasure. It tends, in particular, to be experienced when
faculties which are fully developed are being called into
the fullest activity of which they are capable. This is the
gist of Aristotle's famous account of pleasure, in the tenth
book of the Nicomachaean Ethics, as a by-product or something
added.
If one of our senses is in a healthy state and is engaged
in reporting to us the nature of an object of an appropriate
kind, for example in the case of sight, an object which is
easily visible, then, says Aristotle, the activity of that sense
is necessarily pleasant. The same is true of the activity
of thought when it is engaged upon a suitable object.
In asserting that activities of this kind are pleasant, Aristotle
emphasizes the fact that the pleasure completes the
activity. Pleasure, in other words, perfects the activity
which it accompanies, although it is not a part of the
activity, nor is it its necessary condition. Aristotle takes a
parallel from the case of health. When a healthy young
man is engaged in an activity calling forth his fullest
powers, there is a superadded completion or perfection
upon his health which gives it a bloom. Now pleasure is
of this character; like the bloom upon the cheek of a young
man it is not aimed at, but is a something added, a sign
that a healthy organism is functioning as it ought to do
in relation to a suitable object.
The account of pleasure given by Aristotle is a statement
of psychological fact rather than an exposition of philosophical
theory; and, on the point of psychological fact, there
is little doubt that Aristotle is right. The by-product