"Mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are rules of morality for the multitude and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better.... To consider the rules of morality as improvable is one thing; to pass over the intermediate generalizations entirely and endeavor to test each individual action directly by the first principle, is another.... Nobody argues that the act of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the nautical almanac. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it already calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong, as well as on many of the far more difficult questions of wise and foolish." =Empirical Rules Run into Fixed Customs.=--It cannot be denied that Mill here states considerations which are of great value in aiding present judgments on right and wrong. The student of history will have little doubt that the rules of conduct which the intuitionalist takes as ultimate deliverances of a moral faculty are in truth generalizations of the sort indicated by Mill. But the truth brought out by Mill does not cover the ground which needs to be covered. Such rules at best cover customary elements; they are based upon past habits of life, past natural economic and political environments. And, as the student of customs knows, greater store is often set upon trivial, foolish, and even harmful things than upon serious ones--upon fashions of hair-dressing, ablutions, worship of idols. Coming nearer our own conditions, past customs certainly tolerate and sanction many practices, such as war, cruel business competition, economic exploitation of the weak, and absence of coöperative intelligent foresight, which the more sensitive consciences of the day will not approve. =Hence are Unsatisfactory.=--Yet such things have been so identified with happiness that to forego them means misery, to alter them painful disturbance. To take the rules of the past with any literalness as criteria of judgment in the present, would be to return to the unprogressive morality of the régime of custom--to surrender the advance marked by reflective morality. Since Bentham and Mill were both utilitarians, it is worth noting that Bentham insisted upon the utilitarian standard just because he was so convinced of the unsatisfactory character of the kind of rules upon which Mill is dwelling. The "Nautical Almanac" has been _scientifically_ calculated; it is adapted rationally to its end; but the rules which sum up custom are a confused mixture of class interest, irrational sentiment, authoritative pronunciamento, and genuine consideration of welfare.