with the good of the whole. Nay, further, he will be taught that when
utility and right are in apparent conflict any amount of utility does not
alter by a hair's-breadth the morality of actions, which cannot be allowed
to deviate from established law or usage; and that the non-detection of an
immoral act, say of telling a lie, which may often make the greatest
difference in the consequences, not only to himself, but to all the world,
makes none whatever in the act itself.

Again, if we are concerned not with particular actions but with classes of
actions, is the tendency of actions to happiness a principle upon which we
can classify them? There is a universal law which imperatively declares
certain acts to be right or wrong: - can there be any universality in the
law which measures actions by their tendencies towards happiness? For an
act which is the cause of happiness to one person may be the cause of
unhappiness to another; or an act which if performed by one person may
increase the happiness of mankind may have the opposite effect if performed
by another. Right can never be wrong, or wrong right, that there are no
actions which tend to the happiness of mankind which may not under other
circumstances tend to their unhappiness. Unless we say not only that all
right actions tend to happiness, but that they tend to happiness in the
same degree in which they are right (and in that case the word 'right' is
plainer), we weaken the absoluteness of our moral standard; we reduce
differences in kind to differences in degree; we obliterate the stamp which
the authority of ages has set upon vice and crime.

Once more: turning from theory to practice we feel the importance of
retaining the received distinctions of morality. Words such as truth,
justice, honesty, virtue, love, have a simple meaning; they have become
sacred to us, - 'the word of God' written on the human heart: to no other
words can the same associations be attached. We cannot explain them
adequately on principles of utility; in attempting to do so we rob them of
their true character. We give them a meaning often paradoxical and
distorted, and generally weaker than their signification in common
language. And as words influence men's thoughts, we fear that the hold of
morality may also be weakened, and the sense of duty impaired, if virtue
and vice are explained only as the qualities which do or do not contribute
to the pleasure of the world. In that very expression we seem to detect a
false ring, for pleasure is individual not universal; we speak of eternal
and immutable justice, but not of eternal and immutable pleasure; nor by
any refinement can we avoid some taint of bodily sense adhering to the
meaning of the word.

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.

But because the utilitarian philosophy can no longer claim 'the prize,' we
must not refuse to acknowledge the great benefits conferred by it on the
world. All philosophies are refuted in their turn, says the sceptic, and
he looks forward to all future systems sharing the fate of the past. All
philosophies remain, says the thinker; they have done a great work in their
own day, and they supply posterity with aspects of the truth and with
instruments of thought. Though they may be shorn of their glory, they
retain their place in the organism of knowledge.

And still there remain many rules of morals which are better explained and
more forcibly inculcated on the principle of utility than on any other.
The question Will such and such an action promote the happiness of myself,
my family, my country, the world? may check the rising feeling of pride or
honour which would cause a quarrel, an estrangement, a war. 'How can I
contribute to the greatest happiness of others?' is another form of the
question which will be more attractive to the minds of many than a
deduction of the duty of benevolence from a priori principles. In politics
especially hardly any other argument can be allowed to have weight except
the happiness of a people. All parties alike profess to aim at this, which
though often used only as the disguise of self-interest has a great and
real influence on the minds of statesmen. In religion, again, nothing can
more tend to mitigate superstition than the belief that the good of man is
also the will of God. This is an easy test to which the prejudices and
superstitions of men may be brought: - whatever does not tend to the good of
men is not of God. And the ideal of the greatest happiness of mankind,
especially if believed to be the will of God, when compared with the actual
fact, will be one of the strongest motives to do good to others.

On the other hand, when the temptation is to speak falsely, to be dishonest
or unjust, or in any way to interfere with the rights of others, the
argument that these actions regarded as a class will not conduce to the
happiness of mankind, though true enough, seems to have less force than the
feeling which is already implanted in the mind by conscience and authority.
To resolve this feeling into the greatest happiness principle takes away
from its sacred and authoritative character. The martyr will not go to the
stake in order that he may promote the happiness of mankind, but for the
sake of the truth: neither will the soldier advance to the cannon's mouth
merely because he believes military discipline to be for the good of
mankind. It is better for him to know that he will be shot, that he will
be disgraced, if he runs away - he has no need to look beyond military
honour, patriotism, 'England expects every man to do his duty.' These are
stronger motives than the greatest happiness of the greatest number, which
is the thesis of a philosopher, not the watchword of an army. For in human
actions men do not always require broad principles; duties often come home
to us more when they are limited and defined, and sanctioned by custom and
public opinion.

Lastly, if we turn to the history of ethics, we shall find that our moral
ideas have originated not in utility but in religion, in law, in
conceptions of nature, of an ideal good, and the like. And many may be
inclined to think that this conclusively disproves the claim of utility to
be the basis of morals. But the utilitarian will fairly reply (see above)
that we must distinguish the origin of ethics from the principles of them -
the historical germ from the later growth of reflection. And he may also
truly add that for two thousand years and more, utility, if not the
originating, has been the great corrective principle in law, in politics,
in religion, leading men to ask how evil may be diminished and good
increased - by what course of policy the public interest may be promoted,
and to understand that God wills the happiness, not of some of his
creatures and in this world only, but of all of them and in every stage of
their existence.

'What is the place of happiness or utility in a system of moral
philosophy?' is analogous to the question asked in the Philebus, 'What rank
does pleasure hold in the scale of goods?' Admitting the greatest
happiness principle to be true and valuable, and the necessary foundation
of that part of morals which relates to the consequences of actions, we
still have to consider whether this or some other general notion is the
highest principle of human life. We may try them in this comparison by
three tests - definiteness, comprehensiveness, and motive power.

There are three subjective principles of morals, - sympathy, benevolence,
self-love. But sympathy seems to rest morality on feelings which differ
widely even in good men; benevolence and self-love torture one half of our
virtuous actions into the likeness of the other. The greatest happiness
principle, which includes both, has the advantage over all these in
comprehensiveness, but the advantage is purchased at the expense of
definiteness.

Again, there are the legal and political principles of morals - freedom,
equality, rights of persons; 'Every man to count for one and no man for
more than one,' 'Every man equal in the eye of the law and of the
legislator.' There is also the other sort of political morality, which if
not beginning with 'Might is right,' at any rate seeks to deduce our ideas
of justice from the necessities of the state and of society. According to
this view the greatest good of men is obedience to law: the best human
government is a rational despotism, and the best idea which we can form of
a divine being is that of a despot acting not wholly without regard to law
and order. To such a view the present mixed state of the world, not wholly
evil or wholly good, is supposed to be a witness. More we might desire to
have, but are not permitted. Though a human tyrant would be intolerable, a
divine tyrant is a very tolerable governor of the universe. This is the
doctrine of Thrasymachus adapted to the public opinion of modern times.

There is yet a third view which combines the two: - freedom is obedience to
the law, and the greatest order is also the greatest freedom; 'Act so that
thy action may be the law of every intelligent being.' This view is noble
and elevating; but it seems to err, like other transcendental principles of
ethics, in being too abstract. For there is the same difficulty in
connecting the idea of duty with particular duties as in bridging the gulf
between phainomena and onta; and when, as in the system of Kant, this
universal idea or law is held to be independent of space and time, such a
mataion eidos becomes almost unmeaning.

Once more there are the religious principles of morals: - the will of God
revealed in Scripture and in nature. No philosophy has supplied a sanction
equal in authority to this, or a motive equal in strength to the belief in
another life. Yet about these too we must ask What will of God? how
revealed to us, and by what proofs? Religion, like happiness, is a word
which has great influence apart from any consideration of its content: it
may be for great good or for great evil. But true religion is the
synthesis of religion and morality, beginning with divine perfection in
which all human perfection is embodied. It moves among ideas of holiness,
justice, love, wisdom, truth; these are to God, in whom they are
personified, what the Platonic ideas are to the idea of good. It is the
consciousness of the will of God that all men should be as he is. It lives
in this world and is known to us only through the phenomena of this world,
but it extends to worlds beyond. Ordinary religion which is alloyed with
motives of this world may easily be in excess, may be fanatical, may be
interested, may be the mask of ambition, may be perverted in a thousand
ways. But of that religion which combines the will of God with our highest
ideas of truth and right there can never be too much. This impossibility
of excess is the note of divine moderation.

So then, having briefly passed in review the various principles of moral
philosophy, we may now arrange our goods in order, though, like the reader
of the Philebus, we have a difficulty in distinguishing the different
aspects of them from one another, or defining the point at which the human
passes into the divine.

First, the eternal will of God in this world and in another, - justice,
holiness, wisdom, love, without succession of acts (ouch e genesis
prosestin), which is known to us in part only, and reverenced by us as
divine perfection.

Secondly, human perfection, or the fulfilment of the will of God in this
world, and co-operation with his laws revealed to us by reason and
experience, in nature, history, and in our own minds.

Thirdly, the elements of human perfection, - virtue, knowledge, and right
opinion.

Fourthly, the external conditions of perfection, - health and the goods of
life.

Fifthly, beauty and happiness, - the inward enjoyment of that which is best
and fairest in this world and in the human soul.

...

The Philebus is probably the latest in time of the writings of Plato with
the exception of the Laws. We have in it therefore the last development of
his philosophy. The extreme and one-sided doctrines of the Cynics and
Cyrenaics are included in a larger whole; the relations of pleasure and
knowledge to each other and to the good are authoritatively determined; the
Eleatic Being and the Heraclitean Flux no longer divide the empire of
thought; the Mind of Anaxagoras has become the Mind of God and of the
World. The great distinction between pure and applied science for the
first time has a place in philosophy; the natural claim of dialectic to be
the Queen of the Sciences is once more affirmed. This latter is the bond
of union which pervades the whole or nearly the whole of the Platonic
writings. And here as in several other dialogues (Phaedrus, Republic,
etc.) it is presented to us in a manner playful yet also serious, and
sometimes as if the thought of it were too great for human utterance and
came down from heaven direct. It is the organization of knowledge
wonderful to think of at a time when knowledge itself could hardly be said
to exist. It is this more than any other element which distinguishes
Plato, not only from the presocratic philosophers, but from Socrates
himself.

We have not yet reached the confines of Aristotle, but we make a somewhat
nearer approach to him in the Philebus than in the earlier Platonic
writings. The germs of logic are beginning to appear, but they are not
collected into a whole, or made a separate science or system. Many
thinkers of many different schools have to be interposed between the
Parmenides or Philebus of Plato, and the Physics or Metaphysics of
Aristotle. It is this interval upon which we have to fix our minds if we
would rightly understand the character of the transition from one to the
other. Plato and Aristotle do not dovetail into one another; nor does the
one begin where the other ends; there is a gulf between them not to be
measured by time, which in the fragmentary state of our knowledge it is
impossible to bridge over. It follows that the one cannot be interpreted
by the other. At any rate, it is not Plato who is to be interpreted by
Aristotle, but Aristotle by Plato. Of all philosophy and of all art the
true understanding is to be sought not in the afterthoughts of posterity,
but in the elements out of which they have arisen. For the previous stage
is a tendency towards the ideal at which they are aiming; the later is a
declination or deviation from them, or even a perversion of them. No man's
thoughts were ever so well expressed by his disciples as by himself.

But although Plato in the Philebus does not come into any close connexion
with Aristotle, he is now a long way from himself and from the beginnings
of his own philosophy. At the time of his death he left his system still
incomplete; or he may be more truly said to have had no system, but to have
lived in the successive stages or moments of metaphysical thought which
presented themselves from time to time. The earlier discussions about
universal ideas and definitions seem to have died away; the correlation of
ideas has taken their place. The flowers of rhetoric and poetry have lost
their freshness and charm; and a technical language has begun to supersede
and overgrow them. But the power of thinking tends to increase with age,
and the experience of life to widen and deepen. The good is summed up
under categories which are not summa genera, but heads or gradations of
thought. The question of pleasure and the relation of bodily pleasures to
mental, which is hardly treated of elsewhere in Plato, is here analysed
with great subtlety. The mean or measure is now made the first principle
of good. Some of these questions reappear in Aristotle, as does also the
distinction between metaphysics and mathematics. But there are many things
in Plato which have been lost in Aristotle; and many things in Aristotle
not to be found in Plato. The most remarkable deficiency in Aristotle is
the disappearance of the Platonic dialectic, which in the Aristotelian
school is only used in a comparatively unimportant and trivial sense. The
most remarkable additions are the invention of the Syllogism, the
conception of happiness as the foundation of morals, the reference of human
actions to the standard of the better mind of the world, or of the one
'sensible man' or 'superior person.' His conception of ousia, or essence,
is not an advance upon Plato, but a return to the poor and meagre
abstractions of the Eleatic philosophy. The dry attempt to reduce the
presocratic philosophy by his own rather arbitrary standard of the four
causes, contrasts unfavourably with Plato's general discussion of the same
subject (Sophist). To attempt further to sum up the differences between
the two great philosophers would be out of place here. Any real discussion
of their relation to one another must be preceded by an examination into
the nature and character of the Aristotelian writings and the form in which
they have come down to us. This enquiry is not really separable from an
investigation of Theophrastus as well as Aristotle and of the remains of