135. COMMENT ON THE ETHICS OF PESSIMISM.--On the metaphysics of the pessimists I shall make no comment save that there appears to be here sufficient vagueness to satisfy the most poetical of minds. But the following points in the ethics of pessimism should be noted: (1) Pleasure and pain are made the measure of the desirability or undesirability of existence. (2) It is assumed that pleasure and pain are measurable; and that they may be quantitatively balanced against one another in such a way that this or that mixture of them may be declared by an enlightened man to be, on the whole, desirable or the reverse. (3) It is claimed that the balance must necessarily incline to the side of pain, and hence, that life is not worth living. (4) It follows from all this that it is our duty to aim, not necessarily directly, but in some manner, at least, at the destruction of life everywhere. (5) I beg the reader to observe that the above doctrine rests upon assumptions which seem to be made without due consideration. Thus: (a) It is by no means to be assumed without question that pleasure and pain alone are the measure of the desirable. They are not the only things actually desired; and, if we assert that they alone are desirable, we fall back upon a dubious intuition. (6) The quantitative relations of pleasures and pains are legitimate subjects of dispute, as we have seen in earlier chapters in this volume. When is one pleasure twice as great as another? How can we know that three pleasures counterbalance a pain? Is it by the mere fact that we _will_ as we do, in a given instance? Then how prove that we will as we do, because of the equivalence of the pleasure to the pain? (c) Who shall decide for us whether life is--not desired, it is admittedly that, as a rule,--but, also, _desirable_? May the man who denies it rest his assertion upon such general considerations as that satisfaction presupposes desire, and that desire implies a lack, and, hence, pain? The famous author of "Utopia" pointed out long ago that the pains of hunger begin before the pleasure of eating, and only die when it does. Shall we, then, regard a hearty appetite as a curse, to be mitigated but not wholly neutralized by a series of good dinners? To be sure, the pessimists do not depend wholly upon such general arguments, but point out in great detail that there is much suffering in the world, and that the fulfillment of desire, when it is attained, often results in disillusionment. But the fact remains that life, such as it is, is desired by men and other creatures generally; desired not as an exception, and under a misapprehension, but, as a rule, even by the enlightened and the far-seeing.