The purely hedonistic views of the Utilitarians he considers untrue. Doubtless, he admits, there is a degree of truth in the doctrine that consciousness tends to pursue the line of greatest pleasure or least resistance, but then we must remember how slight a part this consciousness actually plays. Instincts and an intensive subconscious “will-to-live” are constantly operating. A purely scientific ethic, if it is to present a complete scheme, must allow for this by admitting that the purely hedonistic search after pleasure is not in itself a cause of action, but is an effect of a more fundamental or dominating factor. This factor is precisely the effort of Life to maintain itself, to intensify itself and expand. The chief motive power lies in the “intensity of Life.” “The end which actually determines all conscious action is also the cause which produces every unconscious action; it is Life itself, Life at once the most intense and the most varied in its forms. From the first thrill of the embryo in its mother’s womb to the last convulsion of the old man, every movement of the being has had as cause Life in its evolution; this universal cause of actions is, from another point of view, its constant effect and end.”[33] [33] _Esquisse d’une Morale_, p. 87. A true ethic proceeding upon the recognition of these principles is scientific, and constitutes a science having as its object all the means by which Life, material and spiritual, may be conserved and expanded. Rising in the evolutionary development we find the variety and scope of action increased. The highest beings find rest not in sleep merely, but in variety and change of action. The moral ideal lies in activity, in all the variety of its manifestations. For Guyau, as for Bergson, the worst vice is idleness, inertia, lack of _élan vital_, decay of personal initiative, and a consequent degeneration to merely automatic existence. Hedonism is quite untenable as a principle; pleasure is merely a consequence, and its being set in the van of ethics is due to a false psychology and false science. Granting that pleasure attends the satisfaction of a desire, pain its repression, recognising that a feeling of pleasure accompanies many actions which expand life, we must live, as Guyau reminds us, before we enjoy. The activity of life surges within us, and we do not act with a view to pleasure or with pleasure as a motive, but life, just because it is life, seeks to expand. Man in acting has created his pleasures and his organs. The pleasure and the organ alike proceed from function—that is, life itself. The pleasure of an action and even the consciousness of it are attributes, not ends. The action arises naturally from the inherent intensity of life.