SCIENCE OF RECTITUDE AS DISTINCT FROM EXPEDIENCE. 121 
If an ethical Science of Expedience is to be constructed, 
it is obviously necessary that some universal and ultimate 
object of human action should be found on which the science 
may be based; for unless the foundation can thus be laid, 
nothing is more certain than that any attempt to design the 
superstructure will be a waste of time. Now, of course, no 
arbitrary assumption could be for a moment admitted: the 
object must be one that is determined exclusively and un- 
mistakably by the nature of things, and yet we must hold 
ourselves strictly forbidden to affirm that we are under any 
moral obligation to aim at it. This is the problem, and 
utilitarian moralists believe that they have found the solution. 
They start with the assumption that everyone desires happi- 
ness. Well, so much may be readily conceded, if by happi- 
ness is meant a feeling of complete satisfaction. But satis- 
faction arises just in so far as desires are fulfilled. In the 
event of a conflict among them, this feeling will be ex- 
perienced in the fulfilment of the desire that dominates over 
the rest, whether an animal appetite or a spiritual aspiration. 
But in such a case, until those others are either appeased or 
extinguished, whatever be the degree of happiness enjoyed, 
it will be qualified by the sense that something is wanting to 
make it perfect. We are expected then, it appears, to assent 
to a proposition that may be briefly stated thus: everyone 
desires that his desires may be fulfilled, namely, his dominant 
desire, and all others which it suffers him to entertain; or, 
somewhat to simplify the wording of this incontrovertible 
axiom, everyone desires those things which he does desire. 
Well, seeing that no science can have for its basis a pro- 
position in which nothing is affirmed, the would-be founders 
of the Science of Expedience must abandon their undertaking, 
or they must find some object of aspiration which may be 
fitly substituted for happiness. Will they, then, assert that 
what everyone desires is his well-being? We may presume 
they will not, if by a man’s well-being we are to understand 
that which it is really good for him to be; for they would be 
making an assertion at variance with notorious facts. It is 
true, this is what everyone ought to aim at. But if “ought” 
be understood to point, not to a duty constituted by human 
enactment, but to a fundamental obligation, how could they 
accept the proposition thus amended? ‘This little word, 
which so naturally suggests itself, and is so difficult to dis- 
peuse with in the expression of ethical thought, would anni- 
hilate the entire system of their utilitarian notions, would 
pulverise it, so to speak, as effectually and completely as 
