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culty, also, might well be raised as to wbicb of tbe various 
medical arts is to be regarded as the “ medical art 33 tbat Mr. 
Mill calls good as being conducive to health. And what are 
we to think of a theory of morals which is founded upon our 
knowledge of what conduces to happiness, or what is, there- 
fore, good, if at the outset we are in doubt whether we can 
prove that health is good ? Surely, if by happiness and pleasure 
is meant the absence of pain, there can be no difficulty in 
proving health to be good, unless it be alleged that what con- 
duces to happiness and pleasure is not good. And if, as Mr. 
Mill says, the absence of pain is one primary meaning of 
happiness, one would imagine that nothing could more logi- 
cally follow than that health is good as conducive to the 
absence of pain, and therefore to pleasure or happiness, accord- 
ing to this definition or major proposition. 
Side by side with this he places the following, which may be 
regarded as striking at the very root of the theory of utili- 
tarianism itself : “ The art of music is good, for the reason, 
among others, that it produces pleasure ; but what proof is it 
possible to give that pleasure is good ? 33 I venture to think 
that if a prior question, “ What is good ? 33 had been de- 
termined, these other inquiries would have been more logically 
and satisfactorily answered. It is not, however, my business 
to do this ; and, indeed, most of the abstract questions of this 
kind, as raised by Mr. Mill, are much more fully and satisfac- 
torily answered in the Dialogues of Plato than in his Essay. 
But, admitting that it is impossible to prove that pleasure is 
good, what then becomes of a theory which is professedly 
based upon pleasure as its grand criterion ? I mean, if pleasure 
cannot be proved to be good, can a theory of moral action 
based upon the production of pleasure, as its test and founda- 
tion, be proved to be good ? And if not proved, are we really 
expected to be satisfied with this theory of morals, which re- 
jects the principles of Christianity, on a mere assertion that 
it is good, and to accept it in blind faith, without any 
proof whatever? We are. This is precisely what Mr. Mill 
demands of us in the very next sentence. “ If, then,” he 
says, “it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula , in- 
cluding all things which are in themselves good , and that what^ 
ever else is good is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula 
may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is 
commonly understood by proof . 33 I have no wish to misrepre- 
sent the claims of Utilitarianism, and I therefore add, that the 
above extraordinary dictum is afterwards qualified thus : The 
subject is within the cognizance of the rational faculty, and 
meithor does that faculty deal with it solely in the way of 
