or purity ("or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind "), and likewise its extent, that is, the number of persons to whom it extends or who are affected by it.1

My own happiness depends upon the happiness of the greatest number, i.e., the conduct most conducive to general happiness always coincides with that which conduces to the happiness of the agent.2 Hence it is to the interest of the individual to strive after the general happiness, and it is the business of ethics to point this out to him. "To prove that the immoral action is a miscalculation of self-interest, to show how erroneous an estimate the vicious man makes of pains and pleasures, is the purpose of the intelligent moralist." 3

12. J. S. Mill.-John Stuart Mill accepts the teaching of Bentham in a somewhat modified form. Actions are right in proportion as they tend to pro

1 Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. iv, pp. 29 ff. Bentham expresses his scheme in the following lines. I presume he supposed that at some future time the school children would be compelled to learn them off by heart:

66 Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure -
Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.
Such pleasures seek, if private be thy end:

If it be public, wide let them extend.
Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view:
If pains must come, let them extend to few."

2 Ib., chap. xvii, p. 313.

8 Deontology.

4 1806-1873. Utilitarianism, 1861. See also Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, by James Mill.

mote happiness; wrong, as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.1 Some kinds of pleasure, however, are more desirable and more valuable than others. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. Now it is an unquestioned fact that those who are acquainted with all pleasures prefer those following the employment of the higher faculties. No intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they with theirs. "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides."2

However, the standard is not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether. "As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him (the agent) to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested 1 Utilitarianism, chap. ii, pp. 9, 10. 2 Ib., p. 14. 3 Ib., p. 16.

and benevolent spectator. In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality."1 It is noble to be capable of resigning entirely one's own portion of happiness, or chances of it; but, after all, this self-sacrifice must be for some end; it is not its own end. A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, is wasted.2

But why should I desire the "greatest happiness altogether" instead of my own greatest happiness, as the standard? Mill is somewhat vague and indefinite on this point. Each person desires his own happiness. Each person's happiness is a good to that person; and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons. The reasoning here seems to be this: Everybody desires his own happiness. The happiness of everybody (every particular individual) is a good to everybody (to that particular individual). Hence the happiness of everybody (that is, of all, of the whole) is a good to everybody (that is, to every particular individual).a A more satisfactory answer is given to the question in another place. I have a feeling for the happiness of mankind, “a regard for the pains and pleasures of

1 Utilitarianism, chap. ii, p. 24. 2 lb., pp. 23 ff. 8 Ib., p. 53.

4 We have here a beautiful example of the logical fallacy of composition.

others." "This firm foundation is that of the social feelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our fellow-creatures, which is already a powerful principle in human nature, and happily one of those which tend to become stronger, even without express inculcation, from the influences of advancing civilization." That is, I desire the happiness of others, because I have social feelings, or sympathy.

Both Mill and Bentham, therefore, agree that the greatest good of the greatest number is the goal of action and the standard of morality. But according to Bentham, self-interest is the motive, while according to Mill, sympathy or social feeling is the mainspring of morality.

There is, however, as we have seen, another point of difference between Bentham and Mill. The former regards those pleasures as the best which last the longest and are the most intense, making no qualitative distinction between them. "The quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry." Mill, on the other hand, distinguishes between the quality of pleasures; some are more desirable and more valuable than others, and the highest pleasures are to be preferred. "According to the Greatest Happiness Principle," he declares, “the ultimate end with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people) is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, 1 Utilitarianism, chap. ii, p. 46.

and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality; the test of quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by those who, in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their habits of self-consciousness and self-observation, are best furnished with the means of comparison. This, being, according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is necessarily also the standard of morality; which may accordingly be defined, the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which an existence such as has been described might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but so far as the nature of things admits, to the whole of sentient creation." 1

We reach

13. Sidgwick and Contemporaries. another phase of the theory in Henry Sidgwick.2 According to him, the greatest happiness is the ultimate good.3 By this is meant the greatest possible surplus of pleasure over pain, the pain being conceived as balanced against an equal amount of pleasure, so that the two contrasted amounts annihilate each other for purposes of ethical calculation.1

There are certain practical principles the truth of which, when they are explicitly stated, is manifest. One of these is the principle of rational self

1 Utilitarianism, chap. ii, p. 17.

2 Born 1838. The Methods of Ethics, 1874.

8 Methods, pp. 391 ff., 409 ff.

4 Ib., p. 411.

5 Ib., p. 379.