[S.N. Patten's letter] June 5,1894, Wales Street, Pa. [to F.H. Giddings]

June 5, 1894, Wales Street, Pa.

Dear Giddings,
       I have been
reading and rereading with
great interest the proofs
of your "Sociology." On the
whole I think you have
done better than I expected.
Your theory of social choices
is splendid and must pro-
duce important changes
in current concepts. Your
theory of tradition is nearly
as good although it is
defective in that it has
not the deductive basis
which the theory of choices
has. It needs more work.
Of course you will not expect
me to agree with you in what
you say about the theory of
utility and its place in the
social sciences. I am sur-
prised at the position you take
and at many of your arguments.
I do not see how they can be
upheld and I feel certain
that you will be compelled
by the force of circumstances
to fall in line with other ideas.
 Your difficulty seems to be
in a confusion of the discussions
of the Austrian economists with
with the utilitarian doctrine
that lies at the basis of all
discussion of the subject.
The doctrine of final utility is
an important corollary to the
theory of utility but the latter
would stand if there were
no degrees of utility. The real
question is not at what stage in
development can beings
distinguish the different de-
grees of utility but at what
stage can they distinguish
between pleasure and pain.
You will have hard work
to show that animals cannot dis-
tinguish between pleasure and pain
and try to avoid pains before they
get into a social state. The growth
of the element of pleasure it seems
to me is earlier than the growth
of intensity of pain and choices of
least evils are earlier than those
of greater pleasures.
 You say that pleasure is
dependent upon a the conscious
recognition of an external thing ?
the objective utility. This may
be granted but association im-
plies a conscious recognition of
two things - the being with which
the association is formed and the
object for which the association is
formed. Two lions in quest of
prey must recognize one another
and the prey. Thus association
assumes all that the theory of
utility demands -the importance
of securing the prey and in addition
requires all the conscious intel-
ligence which association demands.
It is therefore an index of a higher
intellectual state and must
come after a mere recognition
of the importance of food.
 This is too long a topic to dis-
cuss in a letter. We must talk
it over when we meet. Fortunately you
get on the right side again in the sub-
sequent chapters so that the real merit
of your work will not be affected by
wrong notions of utility.
Sincerely yours,
                                             Simon N.Patten