More concretely, this act of truth-telling has in this instance, brought about pleasure. Shall we call it right? Right in _this_ instance, of course; but is it right generally? Is truth-telling, as such, right, or is it merely that this instance of it happens to be right? Evidently, on the hedonistic basis, we cannot get beyond the latter judgment. _Prior_ to any act, there will be plenty of difficulties in telling whether it, as _particular_, is right or wrong. The consequences depend not merely on the result intended, but upon a multitude of circumstances outside of the foresight and control of the agent. And there can be only a precarious calculation of possibilities and probabilities--a method which would always favor laxity of conduct in all but the most conscientious of men, and which would throw the conscientious into uncertainty and perplexity in the degree of their conscientiousness. "If once the pleas of instinct are to be abolished and replaced by a hedonistic arithmetic, the whole realm of animated nature has to be reckoned with in weaving the tissue of moral relations, and the problem becomes infinite and insoluble".--Martineau, Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 334. But waive this; let the particular case be settled. There is still no law, no principle, indeed no presumption as to future conduct. The act is not right _because_ it is _truth-telling_, but because, in this instance, circumstances were such as to throw a balance of pleasure in its favor. This establishes no certainty, no probability as to its next outcome. The result _then_ will depend wholly upon circumstances existing _then_--circumstances which have no intrinsic relation to the act and which must change from time to time. The hedonist would escape this abolition of all principle, or even rule, by falling back upon a number of cases--'past experience' it is called. We have found in a number of cases that a certain procedure has resulted in pleasure, and this result is sufficient to guide us in a vast number of cases which come up.