84

III. DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN 113

IV. HUXLEYISM 158

V. RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM 199

VI. LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM 266

EPILOGUE 298

OLD-FASHIONED ETHICS

AND

COMMON-SENSE METAPHYSICS

CHAPTER I.

_ANTI-UTILITARIANISM._

I.

Having, by the heading of this essay, announced that it is intended to
be partly controversial, I can scarcely begin better than by furnishing
the reader with the means of judging whether I myself correctly
apprehend the doctrine which I am about to criticise. If, then, I were
myself an Utilitarian, and, for the sake either of vindicating my own
belief, or of making converts of other people, had undertaken to explain
what Utilitarianism is, I should set about the task somewhat in this
wise:--

The sole use and sole object of existence is enjoyment or pleasure,
which two words will here be treated as synonymous; happiness, also,
though not quite identical in meaning, being occasionally substituted
for them. Enjoyment, it must be observed, is of very various kinds,
measures, and degrees. It may be sensual, or emotional, or imaginative,
or intellectual, or moral. It may be momentary or eternal; intoxicating
delight or sober satisfaction. It may be unmixed and undisturbed, in
which case, however short of duration or coarse in quality, it may in
strictness be called happiness; or it may be troubled and alloyed,
although of a flavour which would be exquisite if pure, and if there
were nothing to interfere with the perception of it. Understood,
however, in a sufficiently comprehensive sense, enjoyment or pleasure
may be clearly perceived to be the sole object of existence. The whole
value of life plainly consists of the enjoyment, present or future,
which life affords, or is capable of affording or securing. Now, the
excellence of all rules depends on their conduciveness to the object
they have in view. The excellence of all rules of life must, therefore,
depend on their conduciveness to the sole object which life has in view,
viz., enjoyment. But the excellence of rules of life, or of conduct or
modes of acting, would seem to be but another name for their morality,
and the morality of actions obviously depend