Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/328

 THE FINAL AIM OF MORAL ACTION. 327 has been to find out that quality of conduct which, perhaps all unconsciously to themselves, occasions men to affirm Tightness of any act. And we have found such a quality, and in it accordingly have attained the objective standard of moral worth. The only moral justification of any act or disposition of the will is the tendency to increase the sum of universal happi- ness more, under the given circumstances, than any other act or disposition would increase it. This ground of justifi- cation will be found to be held implicitly in all other grounds that may be given. And probably no one would ever have objected to it as the standard of moral worth, had not its advocates cast discredit upon it by applying it imperfectly, by choosing unfortunate words in the statement of it, and by associating it with their own peculiar theories of know- ledge. They have inclined to convert morals into politics, to regard only " the greatest number " of men as sacred, to depreciate the moral claims of the individual man. In private morals they have emphasised outward acts to the neglect of inward disposition. They have quite overlooked the subjective side of the moral life. The words that have been most frequently used, "happiness," "pleasure," "utility," could not but cast opprobrium upon the principle they were setting forth. Furthermore, all intuitionists in morals have been held back from appreciating it by the persistence of its advocates in allowing for it no other than a purely empirical basis. And yet it may quite as well lay claim to being an intuition of reason as any of the special duties which have been regarded as such. Prof. Sidgwick goes even so far as to speak of it as that most pre-eminently certain and irrefragable intuition. It is clear, therefore, that in adopting the stan- dard of " Universal Hedonism," one does not commit one- self to any special theory of the origin of morals. This neutrality as to whether the final principle of conduct be a priori or a posteriori we may perhaps seem to have violated, in speaking of the principle as an inductive generalisation. But in speaking of it in this way we refer merely to the method by which we arrive at a scientific knowledge of it. It may in this sense be an inductive generalisation, and yet at the same time it may have been a regulative principle, an intuition, an a priori form of mental activity, guiding and determining the individual judgments out of which the generalisation was drawn. An adequate explanation and justification of the moral standard we adopt, the purpose of this essay does not permit us to give. We have been able simply to indicate the method