=All Fixed Rules Have Same Tendencies.=--Many who strenuously object to all of these schemes of conduct, to everything which hardens it into forms by emphasizing external commands, authority and punishments and rewards, fail to see that such evils are logically connected with any acceptance of the finality of fixed rules. They hold certain bodies of people, religious officers, political or legal authorities, responsible for what they object to in the scheme; while they still cling to the idea that morality is an effort to apply to particular deeds and projects a certain number of absolute unchanging moral rules. They fail to see that, if this were its nature, those who attempt to provide the machinery which would render it practically workable deserve praise rather than blame. In fact, the notion of absolute rules or precepts cannot be made workable except through certain superior authorities who declare and enforce them. Said Locke: "It is no small power it gives one man over another to be the dictator of principles and teacher of unquestionable truths." =II. Utilitarian View of General Rules.=--The utilitarians escape the difficulties inherent in the application to particular cases of a rule which has nothing to do with particular cases. Their principles for judging right and wrong in particular cases are themselves generalizations from particular observations of the effect of certain acts upon happiness and misery. But if we take happiness in the technical sense of Bentham (as meaning, that is, an aggregate of isolated pleasures) it is impossible for general rules to exist--there is nothing to generalize. If, however, we take happiness in its common-sense form, as welfare, a state of successful achievement, satisfactory realization of purpose, there can be no doubt of the existence of maxims and formulæ in which mankind has registered its experience. The following quotations from Mill bring out the essential points: "We think utility or happiness much too complex and indefinite an end to be sought except through the medium of various secondary ends concerning which there may be, and often is, agreement among persons who differ in their ultimate standard; and about which there does in fact prevail a much greater unanimity among thinking persons, than might be supposed from their diametrical divergence on the great questions of moral metaphysics" (_Essay on Bentham_). These secondary ends or principles are such matters as regard for health, honesty, chastity, kindness, and the like. Concerning them he says in his _Utilitarianism_ (ch. ii.):