338 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pt. ii. 



tricks wliich the misuse of current wor»!s plays with the 

 understanding, the so-called utilitarian theory has been, and 

 Btill is, not unfrequently identified with this kind of hedo- 

 nistic philosophy, which is in truth its very antipodes. The 

 error is much like that involved in the accusation of fatalism, 

 commonly hurled at those who maintain the obvious and 

 harmless assertion tliat moral actions conform to law. T5iit 

 the difference, comprising the entire difference between the 

 noblest self-sacrifice and the meanest self-fondling, is as 

 follows : In our theory of pleasure and pain, which if taken 

 as ultimate would be hedonism, the well-being of the com- 

 munity has been as far as possible omitted from the account. 

 Wherever I have introduced references to social phenomena, 

 I have considered them only in their effects upon the fulness 

 of life of the individual. In dealing with the incentives to 

 action in a race of brute animals, the foregoing considerations 

 would be sufficient. But in the so-called utilitarian theory 

 as it is now to be expounded, the well-being of the com- 

 munity, even when incompatible with that of the individual, 

 is the all-important consideration. While the actions deemed 

 pleasurable are those which conduce to the fulness of life of the 

 Individual, the actions deemed right are those which conduce 

 to the fulness of life of the Community. And while the actions 

 deemed painful are those which detract from the fulness of life 

 of the Individual, the actions deemed wrong are those which 

 detract from the fulness of life of the Community. According 

 jO utilitarianism, therefore, as here expounded, the conduct 

 approved as moral is the disinterested service of the commu- 

 nity, and the conduct stigmatized as immoral is the selfish 

 preference of individual interests to those of the community. 

 And bearirg in mind that the community, which primevally 

 comprised only the little tribe, has by long-continued social 

 .ntegration come to comprise the entire human race, we have 

 the ultimate theorem of the utilitarian philosophy, as properly 

 understood, that actions morally right are those which arc 



