=(2) Congeniality to a Good Character the Right Measure.=--The net outcome of this discussion is that the practical value of our acts is defined to us at any given time by the satisfaction, or displeasure, we take in the ideas of changes we foresee in case the act takes place. The present happiness or distaste, depending upon the harmony between the idea in question and the character, defines for us the value of the future consequences: which is the reverse of saying that a calculation of future pains and pleasures determines for us the value of the act and character. But this applies to any end as it happens to arise, not to the end as we ought to form it; we are still without a standard. What has been said applies to the criminal as well as to the saint; to the miser and the prodigal and the wisely generous alike. The idea of a certain result warms the heart of each, his heart being what it is. The assassin would not be one if the thought of a murder had not been entertained by him and if the thought had not been liked and welcomed--made at home. Only upon the supposition that character is already good can we trust judgment, first, to foresee all the consequences that should be foreseen; and, secondly, to respond to each foreseen consequence with the right emotional stamp of like and dislike, pleasure and pain. The Greeks said it is the object of a moral education to see that the individual finds his pleasure in the thought of noble ends and finds his pain in the contemplation of base ends. Again, as Aristotle said: "The good man wills the real object of intent, but what the bad man desires may be anything; just as physically those in good condition want things that are wholesome, while the diseased may take anything to be healthful; for the good man judges correctly" (_Ethics_, Book III., 4, 4). And again: "The good man is apt to go right about pleasure, and the bad man is apt to go wrong" (Book II., 3, 7), and, finally, "It is only to the good man that the good presents itself as good, for vice perverts us and causes us to err about the principle of action" (Book III., 12, 10). =Principle of Quality of Pleasure as Criterion.=--Mill, still calling himself a utilitarian, reaches substantially the same result by (a) making the _quality_ of pleasure, not its bulk or intensity, the standard; and (b) referring differences in quality to differences in the _characters_ which experience them. "It is," he says, "quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some _kinds_ of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and, when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness that does not include their gratification."