are right, and wrong when they are wrong. Everybody can see, I think, that the distinction is important; although I think it is often overlooked in ethical discussions. And it is precisely this distinction which separates what I have called the first part of our theory, from the first of the assertions which it goes on to make in its second part. In its first part it only asserts that the producing or not producing a maximum of pleasure are, absolutely universally, signs of right and wrong in voluntary actions; in its second part it goes on to assert that it is because they produce these results that voluntary actions are right when they are right, and wrong when they are wrong.
There is, then, plainly some important difference between the assertion, which our theory made in its first part, to the effect that all right voluntary actions, and only those which are right, do, in fact, produce a maximum of pleasure, and the assertion, which it now goes on to make, that this is why they are right. And if we ask why the difference is important, the answer is, so far as I can see, as follows. Namely, if we say
