I. What has been said in this book on the subject of the two fundamental facts of natural morals accords to a certain extent with the views of Butler. II. He scarcely distinguishes between personal and objective III. The conduct which conscience approves coincides in his I. Kant repudiates the doctrine of happiness, and derives II. This principle is not of itself sufficient for the direction of III. As regards the conduct which it requires, it is in some II. And he holds that it is no less reasonable for an agent to III. His contention, that the good is the pleasurable, is not NATURAL MORALS. CHAPTER 1. THE PRINCIPLE OF HAPPINESS. I. BESIDES the wish, the more or less undefined longing for a state of satisfaction which we call happiness, there seems to be existing in us a motive of another kind which sometimes urges us in the same direction-urges us, that is, to the performance of any action which will either ward off misery or make us happy. On occasions when alternative courses of conduct lie before us, and we know, or fully believe we know, that the adoption of one will make for our own individual happiness, and the adoption of another for our own individual unhappiness, it does not appear to be always the mere wish for happiness that inclines us to the one rather than to the other; but we are at times conscious of another feeling operating in the same direction as this wish, and, like it, urging us to make our own happiness the end of action. We are moved to embrace what opportunities we may of adding to our happiness, not only because to do so seems to be desirable, but also because to do so seems to be natural. Any measure of greater happiness or less unhappiness that lies plainly within our reach is capable of being apprehended by us, not only as an object which we should like to grasp, but also as an A object which nature puts before us intending that we should grasp it. And, as associated with the apprehension of happiness as a state of satisfaction, there is within us a moving wish to become possessed of it, so associated with the apprehension of it as an object put before us by nature there seems to be within us a moving feeling, other than the wish, inciting us to lay hold of it. When, in determining our choice of conduct, we happen to think about the matter, we seem of necessity to adopt the view, that it is according to the purpose and design of nature that we should gratify our wish for happiness in such measure as it is plainly within our power to do so; and nature appears to place some actual constraint upon us to avail ourselves of such means to our own happiness as are manifestly within our reach. The choice of a less in preference to a greater happiness is felt to be not only undesirable, but also unnatural; and we shrink from it as such. And in the judgments which we pass on the conduct of others, our recognition of a constraint imposed by nature upon every individual agent to have regard for his own happiness is no less apparent. We look upon it as natural that a man should act with a view to his own well-being; and for any one to neglect what are obviously his own best interests is considered not only foolish, but also censurable, being held to be contrary to one of nature's ordinances. The happiness with which the constraint seems to be concerned is, first, the happiness of life as a whole, including the future so far as the individual agent is able to realise that it belongs to himself and will be affected by his present conduct; and, secondly, it is the greatest happiness that he knows it to be in his power to secure. Whichever among a variety of modes of action is plainly calculated to produce most happiness on the whole to ourselves, that mode we seem conscious of being under some constraint to adopt, whether the looked-for happiness is immediate or prospective. Sc The existence of a consciousness of constraint, imposed upon us by nature, to make ourselves happy in such degree as we plainly can, may be taken to be the first fundamental fact of natural morals; the first fundamental fact, that is, of the science of the regulation of conduct according to the purpose and design of nature. By reason of its existence, the pursuit of happiness becomes to a certain extent elevated from the region of unmoral to that of moral conduct. far as the constraint of happiness, as we may conveniently call it, is present as an operating motive, distinguishable from the wish for happiness, so far our adoption of the best means for promoting our own greatest happiness, being in conscious obedience to a behest of nature, appears to be moral conduct. The mere wish for happiness is an unmoral motive; the constraint of happiness is a moral If man knows in any case what course of conduct will make him happy, he acts morally if he adopts that course in obedience to the constraint of happiness. one. II. So far the matter seems tolerably clear. There can be little doubt that, if we may refer conduct at all to the supposed purposes of nature, we are entitled to say that nature intends us so to fashion our behaviour as to grasp in fullest measure such happiness as may be plainly seen to come within our reach. Conduct which is known to promote more than any other the happiness of the agent is natural conduct. Man as a voluntary agent has the goal of his own happiness to keep before him in all cases in which the relative effects of alternative modes of action upon his progress towards that goal are apprehended by him. If, for example, he knows that an act of temperance will make more for his happiness on the whole than an act of intemperance, he is under some constraint to be tem |