129 



more and more with their good, or at least with an ever greater 

 degree of practical consideration for it. He comes, as though 

 instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of 

 course pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to 

 him a thing naturally and necessarily to be attended to, like 

 any of the physical conditions of our existence." In fact 

 "the deeply rooted conception which every individual even 

 now has of himself as a social being tends to make him feel it 

 one of his natural wants that there should be a harmony 

 between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures. 

 This feeling in most individuals is much inferior 

 in strength to their selfish feelings, and is often wanting al- 

 together. But to those who have it, it possesses all the char- 

 acteristics of a natural feeling. It does not present itself to 

 their minds as a superstition of education, or a law despoti- 

 cally imposed by the power of society, but as an attribute 

 which it would not be well for them to be without. This 

 conviction is the ultimate sanction of the greatest happiness 

 morality." 1 



The conception of the individual as thus related to the 

 other members of society through the feeling of sympathy, 

 marks the limit of Adam Smith's contribution. As already 

 observed, however, this standpoint, although supplying the 

 sanctions for moral action, does not furnish us with a standard 

 by which an action may be judged as right or wrong. To 

 supply this defect, Mill advances still another step making 

 a transition from the subjective to the objective aspect of the 

 social relation. As noted above, there is a good which is 

 other than that of the individual or the separate goods of a 

 number of individuals, and it is this atmosphere in which 

 Mill's whole doctrine is propounded. In order to indicate 

 just what the nature of this advance is, it will be necessary to 

 revert to Mill's qualitative distinction between pleasures. 

 Certain pleasures are to be preferred to others, no matter how 

 great the quantity of those others. "What is there," Mill 

 asks, "to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth pur- 

 chasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and 

 judgment of the experienced? When, therefore, those feelings 

 and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher 

 faculties to be preferable in kind, apart from the question of 

 intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from 

 the higher faculties, is susceptible, they are entitled on this 

 subject to the same regard." 2 



'O.C. pp. 47-50. 

 *O.C. p. 16. 



