=Axiomatic Identification of Good with Happiness.=--The principle that happiness is the ultimate aim of human action and the ultimate standard of the moral value of that action is generally regarded by the utilitarians as axiomatic and not susceptible of proof. As Bentham says, "that which is used to prove everything else cannot itself be proved. A chain of proofs must have their commencement somewhere." So Bain says (_Moral Science_, p. 27), "Now there can be no proof offered for the position that happiness is the proper end of all human procedures, the criterion of all right conduct. It is an ultimate or final assumption to be tested by reference to the individual judgments of mankind." Thus also Mill (_Utilitarianism_): "The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible is that people actually see it. In like manner the sole proof that it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it."[137] =Extreme Opposition to Happiness Theory.=--In striking contrast to this view of the self-evident character of happiness as the all-desirable, is the view of those to whom it is equally self-evident that to make pleasure the end of action is destructive of all morality. Carlyle is an interesting illustration of a violent reaction against utilitarianism. His more moderate characterization of it is "mechanical profit and loss" theory. It is "an upholstery and cookery conception of morals." It never gets above the level of considerations of comfort and expediency. More vehemently, it is a "pig philosophy" which regards the universe as a "swine trough" in which virtue is thought of as the attainment of the maximum possible quantity of "pig's wash." Again, apostrophizing man, he says: "Art thou nothing else than a Vulture that flies through the Universe seeking after Somewhat to eat; shrieking dolefully because Carrion enough is not given thee?" Of the attempt to make general happiness the end, he says it proposes the problem of "Given a world of Knaves, to produce honesty from their united action," the term "knave" referring to the individualistic self-seeking character of pleasure and "honesty" to the social outcome desired. As a political theory, he thought that utilitarianism subordinated justice to benevolence, and in that light he referred to it as a "universal syllabub of philanthrophic twaddle." =Ambiguity in Notion of Happiness.=--If to some it is self-evident that happiness is the aim of action, and success in achieving it the test both of the act and the disposition from which it proceeds; while to others it is equally obvious that such a view means immorality or at least a base and sordid morality, it is reasonable to suppose that the "happiness" does not mean the same to both parties; that there is some fundamental ambiguity in the notion.