Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/329

328 s. COIT : by which we have come to adopt it, and to point out the accidental circumstances which have occasioned most of the objections against it. But the arguments for it in detail, being easy to be gathered from a host of writers, need not be repeated here. And perhaps, too, in simply using it in the special investigation before us, we shall, quite unintentionally, be giving the most impartial and convincing of arguments for it, since the trustworthiness of any standard is best proved by the particular results of its application. Taking therefore as the ultimate criterion of right and wrong the tendency to promote universal happiness, let us now test the worth of the various other objects which with any degree of plausibility may be proposed as the final aim of conduct. The notion is a common one, that every man should seek his own greatest possible happiness in life. But the pursuit of this object would endanger the welfare of mankind, in the case of all men who did not happen to find their greatest happiness in furthering that welfare. Nor could it be argued that such men w r ere always self-deceived and were not pursu- ing their true happiness. For, while without doubt men are often mistaken as to what will bring them the greatest surplus of pleasure over pain, and while both they and the world would be happier if they never were mistaken, still such mistakes are not the only cause why men in seeking their own greatest happiness pursue lines of conduct adverse to society. Men's passions and appetites are so adjusted that in the present state of society the greatest happiness can often be derived from a life not in conformity to the permanent interests of mankind. The case might be other- wise in a state where the full social and legal sanctions of right and wrong doing were immediately felt, and where one could not so easily as now escape the consciousness of moral un worthiness. But we must take men and society as they are. The peculiar nature of each individual man in his peculiar social environment is the only point of view from which to determine what would bring him the most happi- ness. And from the point of view of the man's own nature and environment the pursuit of his own greatest happiness would seldom tend to promote the universal happiness. Nor may we take any other point of view without confusion of thought ; for by so doing we can determine only what a man's greatest happiness would be if he were another man. This is, however, exactly the inadvertency into which most of the advocates of Egoistic Hedonism fall. What they mean is that each man should seek what would be his greatest happiness if he were a perfectly moral man. But the per-