This view receives confirmation from the way in which utilitarianism is held by the most eminent of living moralists. In the 'Methods of Ethics,' the tradition of Bentham is expressly united with the doctrines of Butler and Clarke. Professor Sidgwick agrees with Bentham, and the long line of moralists from Epicurus downwards, in maintaining the doctrine of ethical hedonism, that pleasure is the only thing ultimately desirable; but, with Butler, he rejects the psychological hedonism, according to which pleasure is the only object of desire. So far from these two positions being inconsistent, it is only through the second that the first can be held in its universalistic form. The problem is, however, how to unite them. In Professor Sidgwick's theory, they are connected by the application of the ethical maxims of benevolence and equity, which an exhaustive examination of ethical intuitions has left standing as axioms of the practical reason. Though utilitarianism, therefore, is still adhered to, it is on an expressly Rational ground, not on the basis of Naturalism. * * * * * [Sidenote: 7. Summary of ethical consequences of psychological hedonism:] In this and the previous chapter, I have looked at human nature from the point of view of psychological hedonism, and have endeavoured to show what ethical principles that theory leads to, or is consistent with. The theory does not deny that there is a great diversity of capacities and interests in man. But it holds that, so far as concerns conduct, they admit of being brought under one general law--that every action is subject to the rule of the "two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain." It is evident, therefore, that if ethics is to be connected at all with psychology--if what ought to be done is in any degree what can be done--the end of conduct must be hedonistic. The psychological fact cannot indeed be without more ado turned into a moral imperative. Yet this much may be admitted, that if this interpretation of action leaves room for ethics at all, the end prescribed can be nothing else than pleasure, or the avoidance of pain. [Sidenote: (_a_) no logical connection with utilitarianism;]