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

ETHICAL THEORY SURVEYED 409
ever-diminishing satisfaction is less. Thus, if a man allows
he will find
himself to be dominated by his appetites,
that he is in bondage to a tyrant whose demands grow
ever more exacting, and who shows less and less gratitude
when they are satisfied.
The case of cigarette smoking cited on a previous page 1
affords a good example of Plato's contention.
What is true in a small way of a small desire, such as
the desire for cigarette smoking, is more significantly true
of the more tyrannous desires; of the desire for heavy
drinking, for sexual pleasure, or for drugs.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SELF-INDULGENCE. In spite
of these obvious considerations, there is a school of thought
represented in every age, which identifies the good life with
intensity of sensational experience. "Not the fruit of experience,
but experience itself is," Walter Pater affirms, "the
end." "Success in life" is, he continues, "to burn always
with" a "hard gem-like flame, to maintain", an "ecstasy".
The palace of wisdom lies through the gateways of excess,
announced Blake, who also exhorted us to "damn braces"
and "bless relaxes". In all ages men have seen in self-
expression and self-development the ends of life. The body,
they have urged, should be regarded as an Aeolian harp
for the evocation of delicate harmonies of feeling and of
sensation. Deliberately, by training and experience, the
wise man tunes the harp, producing as a result harmonies
of feeling still more exquisite, thrills of sensation still
more intense.
This attitude to life, however eloquent the language
in which it finds expression, is, nevertheless, exposed to a
disabling defect, the defect which is illustrated by the
exajnple of excessive smoking, the defect against, which
Aristotle seeks to guard by his doctrine of the Mean,
and which Plato has in mind when he criticizes the impure
pleasures. Of the pleasures which result from the satisfaction
of appetites, it is true (i) that the more of them
1 See Chapter IV, p. 102.