Society And its Purpose
Book 4 - Psychological Laws and the End of Civil Societies
CHAPTER 4
The judgment which makes us content
is an habitual, not merely actual judgment, producing a STATE of the human
spirit
528. We must also bear in mind that in speaking of consciousness or awareness we mean something stable in the human being, not a passing act. A judgment is indeed an act, but there are acts which can be repeated as often as we wish; some are in fact repeated and frequently reproduced. Furthermore, the decision pronounced as a result of these actual judgments takes place in the memory where it remains like all other cognitions, opinions and persuasions.
These need no longer be formed in order to be made present again to conscious thought; it is sufficient for the memory to recall them. Finally, the opinions and persuasions preserved in the habit of memory, if they assure us of our well-being, not only cause frequent internal pleasure but bring into effect a continuous feeling of joy and good humour which accompanies us everywhere and remains in us without our actually adverting to its cause. This is the nature and efficacy of eudaimonological consciousness, which assures us internally that our desire is totally satisfied.
529. Hence the following characteristics of eudaimonological consciousness:
1. It is a judgment we can reproduce whenever we wish and do in fact reproduce with frequent, spontaneous movement.
2. It takes the form of a decision pronounced on the satisfaction of our desires. This decision remains constant in the habit of memory as an opinion and persuasion that we are well.
3. It spreads deep within our spirit as an effect of the decision assuring us of our good state (a state which of itself remains isolated within us), that is, of a certain pleasing feeling that makes us constantly joyful and content.
530. Consideration of the first characteristic reveals other important elements. It states that `the judgment about our interior contentment can be repeated as often as we like.' This presupposes that our act of judgment never lacks its matter, which must therefore reside permanently, not transitorily in us; otherwise the decision of the judgment could not be continuously renewed. The matter of the judgement with which we say we are interiorly content is the sum of our satisfied desires.
531. Let us investigate first the nature of desire and then the nature of satisfied desire. Desire is something intellective. We can say that a brute is stimulated by appetite, but not properly speaking that it has a desire. Appetite means any tendency whatsoever, whether animal or intellectual; desire is a rational appetite. We can therefore define desire as `the rational appetite which arises in intelligent beings when they judge that the possession or enjoyment of something they neither have nor enjoy is good for them, and they see its possession or enjoyment as possible.' From this judgment, there arises in the intelligent being who has made it the will to have the good thing he has not but thinks he could have.
The thing sought by desire can itself be either a pleasant sensation or a material object (the cause of pleasant sensations) or a moral or intellectual good; in short, anything whatsoever, stable or passing, that the human being can apprehend under the species of good. It is obvious that if the desired object is transitory, satisfaction of the desire must also be transitory and cannot constitute a state satisfying human nature; if the object desired is something fixed and enduring, the satisfaction of the desire, the enjoyment and possession of the thing desired, is permanent. In this last case, we can be conscious of our well-being and renew as often as we please the judgment forming our eudaimonological consciousness. We see from this that the matter of contentment is not an act but a pleasant state.
532. On the other hand, it is easy to note that in this life none of our powers can be in continuous act. I am not referring to first acts but to what we call second acts (simply to be, to live, to have the primitive, fundamental feeling is a continuous act). I am speaking about individual acts as commonly understood, and as causes which produce more lively pleasure and pain by activating the mind with a thought or stimulating the sensiferous fibres. While we are on earth, such acts cannot be permanent. When our nerves are overstimulated, they tire and relax; the nature of animal pleasure, originating with such a movement of parts, passes.
The attention of the mind also ceases because of the effort caused to the body from which the forces necessary for the preservation of life are withdrawn. In short, everything shows, as Rousseau says, that `the happiness our heart desires is not made up of fugitive moments but is a simple, permanent state without intensity as such, whose duration however increases enchantment to the point where we finally discover supreme happiness.'(254) Instantaneous pleasure, although more intense relative to pleasure of a continuous duration, is like an infinitesimal quantity in relationship to a finite quantity; an infinite distance lies between them.
533. We can therefore say: `The principal good in this life does not consist in particular, momentary acts but in the continuous feeling which accompanies the perfection of human powers and habits.' Furthermore, anyone who has to choose between a pleasant act and a higher degree of perfection in his powers and habits acts excellently by placing the latter before the former. The degree of perfection obtained allows him to enjoy a greater feeling of his own existence and, by adding perfection to all his future acts, is equivalent in value to all his future acts taken together. Hence, we must therefore pay careful attention to the relationship between our actions and the improvement of our habits and faculties. Philosophers who neglected this, who restricted their considerations to ephemeral acts of pleasure without linking these to the effect they leave in our habits and faculties, who above all posited human happiness in acts alone, were led into innumerable, disastrous errors about virtue and the eudaimonological good of humankind.
Notes
(254) Les Rèveries du promeneur solitaire, Promen, 5. - In reality, supreme happiness can only consist in a very intense pleasure produced by a continuous act, and cannot be found on earth. Rousseau says, `Even in the most intense enjoyment there is scarcely a moment when the heart can truly say, "I would like this moment to last forever." How can we possibly call happiness a fugitive state which leaves our heart restless and empty, unhappy with the past and longing for the future?' We want a STATE; we incline to stability, to STABILISE everything around us. We cannot, in this life, obtain a state consisting of an intense continuous act, because our destination on earth is to be a power which develops through a series of acts. Human happiness on earth is HABITUAL, not ACTUAL.'
Rousseau continues, `If there is a state where the soul can find a base sufficiently solid to rest on totally, and on which to concentrate all its being without having to recall the past or move into the future; where time does not exist for it; where the present endures but is never noticed; where there is no succession, no feeling of privation or enjoyment, of pleasure or pain, of desire or fear, except that of our own existence, which alone can fill the soul totally - then, as long as this state lasts, those enjoying it can call themselves happy. Their happiness is not imperfect, poor and relative (as would be the case of someone living amidst the delights of life) but sufficient, perfect and full; it would leave in the spirit no void needing to be filled.' - No one draws greater delight from his own existence than the person whose existence is greater. We see this verified in people even on earth whose nature has been made greater through their intimate and hidden union with God; he is truly the only thing that unites itself in perfect unity with the human being.