THE MORALITY OF HAPPINESS. 109 



altered. Most of the members of the body social in civilized, and 

 especially in Christian countries, would be assigned in that case to 

 Class A — though every one knows that in reality this class is a very 

 small one indeed. Class B would be scarcely changed in number, 

 because, while members of that class are ready to maintain that the 

 views on which their conduct depends are, in their opinion, sound and 

 just, these views are not such as the members of other classes are 

 anxious to simulate. They are not popular views, like the self-sacri- 

 ficing ones which so many pretend to hold, but by no means really act 

 upon. 



It is tolerably obvious that the well-being of society as a whole re- 

 quires that Classes D and E shall not be unduly large, compared with the 

 whole number of the community. Whatever tends to diminish their 

 number, and especially the number of Class E, must tend to increase the 

 well-being — that is, the happiness — of the social body. Class C, which 

 always constitutes the main body, merges by insensible gradations 

 into Class D, and Class D into Class E. Comparatively slight changes, 

 influences relatively unimportant, suffice to transfer large numbers 

 from the indifferent Class C to the self-seeking Class D, and similarly 

 slight changes may suffice to transfer many from the simply self-seek- 

 ing Class D to the noxious Class E. The lines of distinction between 

 the first three classes are more marked. Members of the first class 

 are more apt, at present, to pass into the third class than into the 

 second, though little it should seem is needed to make these (the self- 

 forgetting, enemy-loving members of the community) pass into the 

 section combining due care of self with anxious desire to increase the 

 happiness and well-being of the social body. That any members of 

 the second class should pass either into the first, whence most of them 

 came, or into the third, whose indifference to the welfare of others is 

 unpleasing to them, or into the fourth, whose selfishness is abhorrent 

 to them, is unlikely ; for which reason this class should logically have 

 occupied the first place, seeing that the class we have set first really 

 merges both into the second and into the third, which should, there- 

 fore, be set on different sides of it. We had a reason, however, 

 which many will understand, for not depriving Class A of the position 

 it holds theoretically, though practically the class has no such stand- 

 ing, and is especially contemned by Class C, the noisiest in pretending 

 to accept its principles. 



Since, then, the welfare of the body social depends mainly on the 

 relative smallness of Classes D and E, the selfish and the noxious, it 

 follows that an important, if not the chief, duty to society, for all who 

 really and reasoningly desire the well-being and progress of the com- 

 munity, is so to regulate their conduct as to cause these classes to be- 

 come relatively smaller and smaller. Conduct which can be shown to 

 encourage the development of these classes, to make selfish ways 

 pleasanter, and noxious ways safer, is injurious to the body social, and 



