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Again: the higher the view which men take of life, the more they lose sight of their own pleasure or interest. True religion is not working for a reward only, but is ready to work equally without a reward. It is not 'doing the will of God for the sake of eternal happiness,' but doing the will of God because it is best, whether rewarded or unrewarded. And this applies to others as well as to ourselves. For he who sacrifices himself for the good of others, does not sacrifice himself that they may be saved from the persecution which he endures for their sakes, but rather that they in their turn may be able to undergo similar sufferings, and like him stand fast in the truth. To promote their happiness is not his first object, but to elevate their moral nature. Both in his own case and that of others there may be happiness in the distance, but if there were no happiness he would equally act as he does. We are speaking of the highest and noblest natures; and a passing thought naturally arises in our minds, 'Whether that can be the first principle of morals which is hardly regarded in their own case by the greatest benefactors of mankind?'

The admissions that pleasures differ in kind, and that actions are already classified; the acknowledgment that happiness includes the happiness of others, as well as of ourselves; the confusion (not made by Aristotle) between conscious and unconscious happiness, or between happiness the energy and happiness the result of the energy, introduce uncertainty and inconsistency into the whole enquiry. We reason readily and cheerfully from a greatest happiness principle. But we find that utilitarians do not agree among themselves about the meaning of the word. Still less can they impart to others a common conception or conviction of the nature of happiness. The meaning of the word is always insensibly slipping away from us, into pleasure, out of pleasure, now appearing as the motive, now as the test of actions, and sometimes varying in successive sentences. And as in a mathematical demonstration an error in the original number disturbs the whole calculation which follows, this fundamental uncertainty about the word vitiates all the applications of it. Must we not admit that a notion so uncertain in meaning, so void of content, so at variance with common language and opinion, does not comply adequately with either of our two requirements? It can neither strike the imaginative faculty, nor give an explanation of phenomena which is in accordance with our individual experience. It is indefinite; it supplies only a partial account of human actions: it is one among many theories of philosophers. It may be compared with other notions, such as the chief good of Plato, which may be best expressed to us under the form of a harmony, or with Kant's obedience to law, which may be summed up under the word 'duty,' or with the Stoical 'Follow nature,' and seems to have no advantage over them. All of these present a certain aspect of moral truth. None of them are, or indeed profess to be, the only principle of morals.

And this brings us to speak of the most serious objection to the utilitarian system—its exclusiveness. There is no place for Kant or Hegel, for Plato and Aristotle alongside of it. They do not reject the greatest happiness principle, but it rejects them. Now the phenomena of moral action differ, and some are best explained upon one principle and some upon another: the virtue of justice seems to be naturally connected with one theory of morals, the virtues of temperance and benevolence with another. The characters of men also differ; and some are more attracted by one aspect of the truth, some by another. The firm stoical nature will conceive virtue under the conception of law, the philanthropist under that of doing good, the quietist under that of resignation, the enthusiast under that of faith or love. The upright man of the world will desire above all things that morality should be plain and fixed, and should use language in its ordinary sense. Persons of an imaginative temperament will generally be dissatisfied with the words 'utility' or 'pleasure': their principle of right is of a far higher character—what or where to be found they cannot always distinctly tell;—deduced from the laws of human nature, says one; resting on the will of God, says another; based upon some transcendental idea which animates more worlds than one, says a third:

     on nomoi prokeintai upsipodes, ouranian
     di aithera teknothentes.

To satisfy an imaginative nature in any degree, the doctrine of utility must be so transfigured that it becomes altogether different and loses all simplicity.

But why, since there are different characters among men, should we not allow them to envisage morality accordingly, and be thankful to the great men who have provided for all of us modes and instruments of thought? Would the world have been better if there had been no Stoics or Kantists, no Platonists or Cartesians? No more than if the other pole of moral philosophy had been excluded. All men have principles which are above their practice; they admit premises which, if carried to their conclusions, are a sufficient basis of morals. In asserting liberty of speculation we are not encouraging individuals to make right or wrong for themselves, but only conceding that they may choose the form under which they prefer to contemplate them. Nor do we say that one of these aspects is as true and good as another; but that they all of them, if they are not mere sophisms and illusions, define and bring into relief some part of the truth which would have been obscure without their light. Why should we endeavour to bind all men within the limits of a single metaphysical conception? The necessary imperfection of language seems to require that we should view the same truth under more than one aspect.

We are living in the second age of utilitarianism, when the charm of novelty and the fervour of the first disciples has passed away. The doctrine is no longer stated in the forcible paradoxical manner of Bentham, but has to be adapted to meet objections; its corners are rubbed off, and the meaning of its most characteristic expressions is softened. The array of the enemy melts away when we approach him. The greatest happiness of the greatest number was a great original idea when enunciated by Bentham, which leavened a generation and has left its mark on thought and civilization in all succeeding times. His grasp of it had the intensity of genius. In the spirit of an ancient philosopher he would have denied that pleasures differed in kind, or that by happiness he meant anything but pleasure. He would perhaps have revolted us by his thoroughness. The 'guardianship of his doctrine' has passed into other hands; and now we seem to see its weak points, its ambiguities, its want of exactness while assuming the highest exactness, its one-sidedness, its paradoxical explanation of several of the virtues. No philosophy has ever stood this criticism of the next generation, though the founders of all of them have imagined that they were built upon a rock. And the utilitarian system, like others, has yielded to the inevitable analysis. Even in the opinion of 'her admirers she has been terribly damaged' (Phil.), and is no longer the only moral philosophy, but one among many which have contributed in various degrees to the intellectual progress of mankind.