"The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle," writes Mill, "holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure." This means, he adds, "that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things ... are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain." [Footnote: _Utilitarianism_, chapter ii. In the pages following, when I leave out a reference to pain in discussing the utilitarian doctrine, it will be for convenience and for the sake of brevity. The intelligent reader can supply the omissions. ] The pleasure here intended is not the selfish pleasure of the individual. Utilitarianism is not Cyrenaicism. The goal of the utilitarian's endeavors is the general happiness, in which many individuals participate. The moral rules which control and direct the strivings of the individual derive their authority from their tendency to serve this end. 106. BENTHAM'S DOCTRINE.--Most uncompromising is the utilitarianism set forth in the writings of Mill's master, that most benevolent and philanthropic of men, Jeremy Bentham. He is true to his principles and he makes no concessions. He regards that as in the interest of the individual which tends to add to the sum total of his pleasures or to diminish the sum total of his pains. And he understands in the same sense the interest of the community. [Footnote: _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, chapter i, Sec 5.] That which serves that interest he sets down as "conformable to the principle of utility." What is thus conformable he declares ought to be done, what is not conformable ought not to be done. Right and wrong he distinguishes in the same manner. "When thus interpreted," he insists, "the words _ought_, and _right_ and _wrong_, and others of that stamp, have a meaning; when otherwise, they have none" [Footnote: _Ibid_., i, 10.] Of differences in quality between pleasures Bentham takes no account. In his curious and interesting chapter entitled "Value of a Lot of Pleasure or Pain, how to be Measured," he enumerates the circumstances which should determine the value of a pleasure or a pain. They are as follows: [Footnote: _Ibid_., chapter iv.] 1. Its intensity. 2. Its duration. 3. Its certainty or uncertainty. 4. Its propinquity or remoteness. 5. Its fecundity. 6. Its purity. 7. Its extent.