plained 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 di