metimes be carried to the length of suppressing every natural instinct
and natural hope, and of turning the philosopher, as it turned Hegesias
the Cyrenaic, into a eulogist of death.

The post-rational principle in the system then comes to the fore, and we
see clearly that to sit down and reflect upon human life, picking out
its pleasant moments and condemning all the rest, is to initiate a
course of moral retrenchment. It is to judge what is worth doing, not by
the innate ambition of the soul, but by experience of incidental
feelings, which to a mind without creative ideas may seem the only
objects worthy of pursuit. That life ought to be accompanied by pleasure
and exempt from pain is certain; for this means that what is agreeable
to the whole process of nature would have become agreeable also to the
various partial impulses involved--another way of describing organic
harmony and physical perfection. But such a desirable harmony cannot be
defined or obtained by picking out and isolating from the rest those
occasions and functions in which it may already have been reached. These
partial harmonies may be actual arrests or impediments in the whole
which is to be made harmonious; and even when they are innocent or
helpful they cannot serve to determine the form which the general
harmony might take on. They merely illustrate its principle. The
organism in which this principle of harmony might find pervasive
expression is still potential, and the ideal is something of which, in
its concrete form, no man has had experience. It involves a propitious
material environment, perfect health, perfect arts, perfect government,
a mind enlarged to the knowledge and enjoyment of all its external
conditions and internal functions. Such an ideal is lost sight of when a
man cultivates his garden-plot of private pleasures, leaving it to
chance and barbarian fury to govern the state and quicken the world's
passions.

Even Aristippus, the first and most delightful of hedonists, who really
enjoyed the pleasures he advocated and was not afraid of the incidental
pains--even Aristippus betrayed the post-rational character of his
philosophy by abandoning politics, mocking science, making his peace
with all abuses that fostered his comfort, and venting his wit on all
ambitions that exceeded his hopes. A great temperament can carry off a
rough philosophy. Rebellion and license may distinguish honourable souls
in an age of polite corruption, and a