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THE DOCTRINE OF THE SUMMUM BONUM. 375 meaning. Self-regarding action need not be selfish in the dyslogistic sense ; it may be only neutral. Moreover we often speak of a man's conduct as selfish where we should not in strictly scientific phrase call it self-regarding. For instance, a man may injure the public service to further the interests of his family, and we may rightly blame him for so doing. But on closer inspection we may see that his con- duct is dictated by unselfish motives of a certain kind ; though they are not praiseworthy at such a conjuncture. 9. Still less is our antithesis identical with that of egoism and altruism which play so great a part in Mr. Herbert Spencer's ethics. Mr. Spencer's egoism is action directed towards the attainment of one's own pleasure, while altruism is action directed towards the pleasure of others. But unselfish action as I have used the term has, primarily, no reference to pleasure at all ; though, secondarily, it is true that pleasure is often involved. When we show devotion to our superiors we generally please them. To define unself- ishness as action done to cause pleasure to others is, I venture to think, not only to misinterpret the conception but to degrade it. 10. To the two kinds of action correspond the two main kinds of ethical theory, eudaemonism and what we may call moral idealism. It is characteristic of the former that it interprets morality in terms of self-regarding action ; perhaps denies the possibility of unselfish action altogether. While moral idealism, in its various forms of intuitionism, moral- sense theory and duty -theory, sees that morality is essentially unselfish. 11. The lowest form of eudsemonism, the hedonism which puts the highest good in momentary enjoyment, dis- plays its fundamental error most consistently. The upward development of the theory is simply the process of taking in more and more of the truth while keeping the phraseology of error. Aristotle's Ethics are redeemed by extensive con- cessions in this direction. "To the courageous man courage is essentially a fair or noble thing." This might have been written by a moral idealist. It may startle some to hear T. H. Green classed as a eudaemonist ; but it is evident that he was quite captured by the fundamental doctrines of the school which he spent his life in opposing. This is too ordinary a phenomenon in the history of philosophy to cause astonishment. " The common characteristic of the good is that it satisfies some desire." 1 "In all enacted desire self-satisfaction is sought.'" 1 Prolegomena, 171. 2 Tb. t 158.