CHAPTER I 
margins and their diagrammatic representation 
Summary.—This chapter is devoted to a fuller examination of 
the principle of declining marginal significances. It is 
altvays the provocatives, opportunities, or supports of desired 
experiences or vents of impulse, and never those experiences 
themselves, that this law illustrates; but within that area 
it seems to be universal. It may appear, at first sight, 
that the claims of duty, of faith, or of humanity are not 
{or at least should not be) subject to any declining urgency 
as they are more fully met; and also that some satis 
factions are habitually indulged in down to the point of 
satiety, whereas, according to our theory, the last and least 
significant increments of the things that minister to them 
should be less valued than increments of other things 
that would minister to still unsatisfied wants. But a 
careful examination will shew that these objections either 
rest on some misapprehension or are due to the fact that, 
under any given set of conditions, there is always a “ mini 
mum sensibile ” below which conscious estimates cannot 
he carried. Another set of difficulties arises from a con 
fusion between the positive and negative sign of increments 
°J scitisfaction and a positive or negative state of satisfaction. 
”he attempt to dispel this confusion, in connection with 
the diagrammatic method, leads us to an examination of 
the reactions of various kinds of indulgence upon the 
organism itself and its future capacities for enjoyment. 
his again leads to the discovery of interesting relations 
0 We en a hedonistic calculus and current moral judgments. 
17 method, however, does not imply a hedonistic theory 
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