There might conceivably be a world in which consciousness
should exist without any agreeable or disagreeable qualities; in such
a world nothing would matter; all acts would be equally indifferent.
Or there might be a world in which all experiences were equally
pleasurable or painful; in such a case all acts would be equally good
or equally sad; there would be no ground for choice. One might in any
of these hypothetical worlds be driven by mechanical impulse or fitful
whim to do this or that, but there would be no rational basis for
preference. Such, however, is not the case. Comparative valuation is
possible; all secondary goods and evils arise, all morality, all art
and religion and science have their wellspring in this brute fact,
this primordial parting of the ways between the more and the less
desirable phases of possible conscious life. Morality of an elementary
type would exist on this level even without the further complications
of actual life. At least a very important art would arise; whether
or not we should call it morality is a mere matter of definition. For
a choice between alternatives immediately felt goods would arise, and
the problem of how to get the better kinds of experience and avoid
the worse would demand solution. Every bit of plus value added to
experience would make the world so much the brighter, as would every
bit of pain avoided. There are, to be sure, the mystical optimisms
and pessimisms to be reckoned with, the sweeping assertions of certain
schools and individuals that everything is equally good or equally
bad.
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