154 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



done. With the aid of this psychological instrument, 

 the dissecting analysis of the Association-psychology, he 

 approached the principles of utility, happiness, and 

 pleasure, upon which the morality of Benthamism was 

 founded. These terms, under his treatment, acquired a 

 larger and higher meaning. In this way he also de- 

 parted from the exclusively quantitative estimate of 

 pleasure which was adopted by Bentham. Thus lie 

 added to the different sources of obligation or sanctions, 

 as Bentham termed them, one of which the latter 

 omitted to take note, man's feeling of unity with his 

 fellow-creatures. 1 He admits that in most individuals 

 this feeling is much inferior in strength to their selfish 

 feelings and is often wanting altogether, but it presents 

 itself to the minds of those who have it " as an attri- 

 bute which it would not be well for them to be with- 

 out " ; and " this conviction is the ultimate sanction of 

 the greatest-happiness " principle in morality. 2 



Mill further came under the influence also of Auguste 

 nfluenceon Comte, who gave prominence to this latter sentiment 3 

 under the name of Altruism, which he opposed to Egoism. 



19. 



Comte's 



Mill. 



1 Professor Sorley, however, re- 

 marks that Bentham did mention 

 what he called the "sympathetic 

 sanction." See Works by Bowring, 

 iii. 290 ; cf. Halevy, ' Le For- 

 malisme du Radicalisme philoso- 

 phique,' i. 284. 



2 'Utilitarianism,' p. 49. 



a " If we now suppose this feeling 

 of unity to be taught as a religion 

 and the whole force of education, 

 of institutions, and of opinion, 

 directed, as it once was in the case 

 of religion, to make every person 

 grow up from infancy surrounded 

 on all sides both by the profes- 



sion and the practice of it, I think 

 that no one, who can realise this 

 conception, will feel any misgiving 

 about the sufficiency of the ulti- 

 mate sanction for the Happiness 

 morality. To any ethical student 

 who finds the realisation difficult I 

 recommend, as a means of facilitat- 

 ing it, the second of M. Comte's 

 two principal Works, 'Traite" de 

 Politique Positive ' " (ibid., p. 48). 

 Here, however, as well as in the 

 Tract ' On Liberty, ' Mill expresses 

 "the strongest objections to the 

 system of politics and morals set 

 forth in that Treatise." 



