That some pleasures may properly be called higher than others moralists of many schools will be ready to admit, but to Mill's criterion of what proves them to be higher they may demur. Of the delight that a fool takes in his folly a wise man may be as incapable as a fool is of the enjoyment of wisdom. With mature years men cease to be competent judges of the pleasures of boyhood. To each nature, its appropriate choice of pleasures. That human beings at a given level of intellectual and emotional development actually desire certain things rather than certain others does not prove that those things are desirable in any general sense. It does not prove that men _ought_ to desire them. For that proof we must look in some other direction; and a critical scrutiny of the pleasures which moralists ancient and modern have generally accepted as "higher" reveals a common characteristic which explains their being thus classed together much better than the appeal to Mill's criterion. [Footnote: See chapter xxx, Sec 142.] As has often been pointed out, Mill, while defending Utilitarianism, really passes beyond it, and his doctrine tends to merge in one widely different from that of Bentham. For the "Greatest Happiness Principle" he virtually substitutes the "Highest Happiness Principle." But he scarcely realizes the significance of his substitution, and he gives an inadequate account of the significance of higher and lower. 108. THE ARGUMENT FOR UTILITARIANISM.--We have seen above that Bentham maintains that such words as "ought," "right" and "wrong" have no meaning unless interpreted after the fashion of the utilitarian. He admits that his "principle of utility" is not susceptible of direct proof, but claims that such a proof is needless. [Footnote: Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter i, 11.] Accepting it as a fact revealed by observation that the actual end of action on the part of every individual is his own happiness as he conceives it, he appears to have passed on without question to the further positions, that the _proper_ end of action of the individual is his own greatest happiness, and, yet, his _proper_ end of action, as a member of a community, is the greatest happiness of the community. [Footnote: See the paper entitled "Logical Arrangements, Employed as Instruments in Legislation" etc., _Memoirs_, Bowring's Edition, Volume X, page 560.] The second of these positions cannot be deduced from the first, nor can the third be inferred from the other two. Bentham appears to have taken the "principle of utility" for granted; but one coming after him and scrutinizing his work can scarcely avoid raising the question of the justice of his assumption. That happiness is the only thing desirable, and that the happiness of all should be the object aimed at by each, are propositions which seem to stand in need of proof.