Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/327

 326 s. COIT : genuous disputants. We may therefore, undisturbed bj r any such objections, proceed with our investigation. Our method will be to find out the universal, distinguishing, characteristic of right action, and, using this characteristic as the standard of value, to determine the relative worth of the various objects that may be proposed as the final aim of conduct. Whoever will group together all the actions and disposi- tions of the will which in various ages and societies have received moral approbation, will find a vast majority of them to have as their essential characteristic the tendency to promote the permanent happiness of society. He will find a corresponding majority of those which have received moral censure to have a contrary tendency. Moreover, where deeds positively detrimental to society have been ap- proved, it will be found in general that they were at least believed not to be detrimental, and it will be found that " variations in the moral code of different societies at different stages correspond, at least generally, to differences in the actual or believed tendencies of certain kinds of conduct " ; so that neither men's actual approval of conduct detrimental to society nor the variations in positive moral codes can be used as an argument against the acceptation of " the ten- dency to promote universal happiness " as the distinguishing characteristic of right action. Indeed, if any induction can lay claim to scientific certainty, this can that under any given circumstances that action is right which tends to in- crease most the general sum of happiness. So well grounded is this inductive generalisation that it may with perfect security be used deductively and applied as a test to all doubtful cases of conduct that may come up for consideration. And let it not be objected that in reasoning from the common moral judgments of men we can attain only what men have thought was right and not what is actually right. For the method here implied, of which the best illustrations are to be found in Aristotle, Hume and Sidgwick, is not to be confounded with that of gathering the opinions of men on a certain subject, rejecting the points in which the opinions conflict and setting up those which are held in common as the standard of truth. We have not searched for what men have thought to be the essential characteristic of right action, but for the essential characteristic of actions which men thought to be right. If our method had been to gather men's opinions as to the essence of virtue and duty, we never could have arrived at the conclusion that it consisted in the tendency to promote universal happiness. But our method