Now in all this, there are two points to which I wish to call attention. The first is that Mr Spencer does not, after all, tell us clearly what he takes to be the relation of Pleasure and Evolution in ethical theory. Obviously he should mean that pleasure is the _only_ intrinsically desirable thing; that other good things are ‘good’ only in the sense that they are means to its existence. Nothing but this can properly be meant by asserting it to be ‘_the_ ultimate moral aim,’ or, as he subsequently says (§ 62 _ad fin._), ‘_the_ ultimately supreme end.’ And, if this were so, it would follow that the more evolved conduct was better than the less evolved, only because, and in proportion as, it gave more pleasure. But Mr Spencer tells us that two conditions are, taken together, _sufficient_ to prove the more evolved conduct better: (1) That it should tend to produce more life; (2) That life should be worth living or contain a balance of pleasure. And the point I wish to emphasise is that if these conditions are sufficient, then pleasure cannot be the sole good. For though to produce more life is, if the second of Mr Spencer’s propositions be correct, _one way_ of producing more pleasure, it is not the only way. It is quite possible that a small quantity of life, which was more intensely and uniformly present, should give a greater quantity of pleasure than the greatest possible quantity of life that was only just ‘worth living.’ And in that case, on the hedonistic supposition that pleasure is the only thing worth having, we should have to prefer the smaller quantity of life and therefore, according to Mr Spencer, the less evolved conduct. Accordingly, if Mr Spencer is a true Hedonist, the fact that life gives a balance of pleasure is _not_, as he seems to think, sufficient to prove that the more evolved conduct is the better. If Mr Spencer means us to understand that it _is_ sufficient, then his view about pleasure can only be, not that it is the sole good or ‘ultimately supreme end,’ but that a balance of it is a necessary constituent of the supreme end. In short, Mr Spencer seems to maintain that more life is decidedly better than less, _if only_ it give a balance of pleasure: and that contention is inconsistent with the position that pleasure is ‘_the_ ultimate moral aim.’ Mr Spencer implies that of two quantities of life, which gave an equal amount of pleasure, the larger would nevertheless be preferable to the less. And if this be so, then he must maintain that quantity of life or degree of evolution is itself an ultimate condition of value. He leaves us, therefore, in doubt whether he is not still retaining the Evolutionistic proposition, that the more evolved is better, simply because it is more evolved, alongside of the Hedonistic proposition, that the more pleasant is better, simply because it is more pleasant.