ot contradict themselves. When, however, we are
told that by aiming at virtue, we are on the best possible road to
happiness, this is but another way of letting us into the secret of
happiness, of putting us on the right, instead of on the wrong, track,
to attain it. Our teacher assumes that we are in search of happiness,
and he tells us how we are to proceed; not by keeping it straight in the
view, but by keeping virtue straight in the view. Instead of pointing us
to the vulgar happiness-seeker who would take the goal in a line, he
corrects the course, and shows us the deviation that is necessary in
order to arrive at it; like the sailor making allowance for the
deviation of the magnetic pole, in steering. Happiness is not gained by
a point-blank aim; we must take a boomerang flight in some other line,
and come back upon the target by an oblique or reflected movement. It is
the idea of Young on the Love of Praise (Satire I., 5.)--

The love of Praise howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less and glows in every heart,
The proud to gain it, toils on toils endure,
_The modest shun it but to make it sure_.

Under this corrected method, we are happiness seekers all the same; only
our aims are better directed, and our fruition more assured.

These remarks are intended to show that the doctrine of making men aim
at virtue, in order to happiness, has no further effect than to teach us
to include the interests of others with our own; by showing that our own
interests do not thereby suffer, but the contrary. The doctrine does not
substitute a virtuous motive for a selfish one; it is a refined artifice
for squaring the two. The world is no doubt a gainer by the change of
view, although the individual is not made really more meritorious.

We must next consider whether, in fact, the oblique aim at happiness is
really the most effectual.

A few words, first, as to the original source of the doctrine of a
devious course. Bishop Butler is renowned for his distinction between
Self-Love and Appetite; he contends that in Appetite the object of
pursuit is not the pleasure of eating, but the food: consequently,
eating is not properly a self-seeking act, it is an indifferent or
disinterested act, to which there is an incidental accompaniment of
pleasure. We should, under the stimulus of Hunger, seek the food,
whether it gave us pleasure or not.

Now, any truth that there is in Butler's view amounts to this:--In our