374 B. BAIN :
pleasure calculus as may be held to debar him from objecting to the use of it.
With regard to what is said of Professor Sidgwick being "never tired of emphasising" "the undesirability of relying on a purely utilitarian morality," let us look to his own words. He writes : "Here our investigation seems after all to leave Empirical Hedonism as the only method ordinarily applicable for the ultimate decision of such problems " (he is referring to "particular modifications of positive morality"), "at least until the Science of Sociology shall have been really constructed ". He afterwards adds that the consideration of the question of maintaining or modifying moral rules " resolves itself into a comparison between the total amount of pleasure and pain that may be expected to result respectively from maintaining any given rule as at present established, and from endeavouring to introduce that which is proposed in its stead. That this comparison must generally be of a rough and uncertain kind we have already seen ; and it is highly important to bear this in mind ; but yet we seem unable to find any substitute for it." Further he explains : " No doubt there are, as we saw, other ends besides Happiness, such as Knowledge, Beauty, etc., commonly recognised as unquestionably desirable, and therefore largely piirsued without consideration of ulterior consequences ; but when the pursuit of these ends involves an apparent sacrifice of happiness in other ways, the practical question whether, under these circumstances, such pursuit ought to be maintained or abandoned seems always decided by an application, however rough, of the method of pure Empirical Hedonism ". And while Professor Sidgwick approves of conjoining a Utilitarian with a Common Sense morality, by admitting that we can only regard the latter as trustworthy when it accords with the utilitarian test, he again constitutes greatest happiness the ultimate court of appeal.
Before turning from Professor Sidgwick's Ethics, I have to allude, not to the next argument it is no argument but the next remark directed against my mode of defence. Eeferring to the difficulties of hedonic calculation, Mr. Muirhead says : "I doubt very much whether any one who has realised the force of the considerations put fonvard by Professor Sidgwick and others will find in the few sentences Mrs. Bain devotes to this subject an adequate reply to them ". If by adequate Mr. Muirhead meai full reply, in an early paragraph of my article I explained that it would be impossible for me, on account of the number of points to which I wished to refer and the limits of my paper, to give an exhaustive criticism of vhat had been said of the difficulties of hedonic calculation or of any other topic. I maintained, however, that Professor Sidgwick and Mr. Spencer had over-estimated these difficulties, and substantiated the contention by criticising certain arguments and examples which they had specified. If Mr. Muirhead had furnished a reply to these remarks, he would then
