unrestrained, or of medium activity. [Sidenote: maximum pleasure only definable in terms of life.] If, then, we have been seeking to define the evolutionist end by interpreting it in terms of pleasure, it appears that we have only succeeded in making the round of a circle: pleasure as the end is seen to be only definable as life or activity, although it was adopted as the end in order that by its help we might discover what life or activity meant as the end for conduct. We may, perhaps, still be able to hold to a form of hedonism, if we turn our attention from the race to a small portion of present mankind. In spite of the modifiability of function and its parasite feeling, we may still be able to say that such and such a course of action is likely to bring most pleasure to the individual or even to the family. But we cannot extend such a means of interpreting the ethics of evolution to the race, where the possibility of modification is indefinitely great, and the pain incurred in initiating a change counts for little in comparison with its subsequent results. If we continue to look from the evolutionist point of view, the question, What conduct will on the whole bring most pleasure? can only be answered by saying that it is the conduct which will most promote life--an answer which might have been more satisfactory had it not been to give meaning to this end "promotion of life" that it was interpreted in terms of greatest pleasure. The evolution-theory of ethics is thus seen to oscillate from the theory which looks upon the _summum bonum_ as pleasure, to that which finds it in activity. It contains elements which make it impossible for it to adhere to the former alternative. The comprehensiveness of its view of life makes it unable to adopt pleasure as the end, since pleasure changes with every modification of function. And it has now to be seen whether the empirical method of interpretation to which it adheres will allow of its notion of life or activity affording a satisfactory end for conduct. FOOTNOTES: [154] Data of Ethics, p. 171. [155] Data of Ethics, p. 162. [156] Ibid., p. 57. [157] Cf. A. Barratt, in Mind, ii. 172 n.