26 A THEOEY OF LIFE DEDUCED 



fatal misconception. A baker, a butcher, a grocer, a 

 clothier, a milkman, a hatter, and a physician make up the 

 entire population of a certain town. They are all good, 

 honest citizens, let us assume, except the baker and the 

 milkman, who are fairly dealt by in their transactions with 

 the rest of the community in spite of their own unscrupu- 

 lous practices and their successful attempts to evade their 

 debts. Now, of course, under such circumstances an 

 honest man, the butcher for example, in the case supposed, 

 may easily be made very unhappy ; but to assign his 

 honesty as the efficient cause of his unhappiness would be 

 about as logical as to say that the injury which a careful 

 person might sustain by falling on the sleety pavement of 

 a negligent neighbour was caused by the injured man's 

 prudence in removing the ice from, his own premises.* 

 No, morality is never the direct cause of unhappiiiess. 

 The objection here raised only proves what has already by 

 necessary implication been strongly emphasized, namely, 

 that uniyrsal happiness is dependent on universal morality^ 

 If in an ideal society, which, as we have seen, means a 

 condition of things where the greatest attainable happiness 

 prevails, any one of the units should suddenly lapse from 

 a state of moral perfection, the total sum of happiness would 

 instantly be diminished, and the society would of necessity 

 cease pro tanto to represent the ideal state. Judge, then, 

 what must be the effect in a society such as ours, where 

 momentarily thousands upon thousands are committing 

 trespasses against their fellow-men ! Amid such a hope- 

 lessly confused entanglement of the natural results of 



* Such subjective states of happiness [as result from the fulfilment of 

 one's duty and which ought to be taken into account as an offset against 

 unhappiness objectively caused, I purposely ignore here, in order to present 

 my opponent's side of the case in its strongest light. 



