Especially amongst the later English moralists--Adam Smith, for instance--the question of the end or standard came almost to drop out of sight in the midst of the controversy regarding the nature of the "moral sense" or "moral faculty"--the way, that is, in which we become aware of the difference between right and wrong. But in Shaftesbury, Butler, and Hutcheson--the writers who formulated this doctrine of the moral sense--the attempt is made to connect a theory of the criterion of morality with the source of our knowledge of it. Shaftesbury and Hutcheson both looked upon social welfare or the general happiness as the end of moral conduct, and the criterion in accordance with which moral character is ascribed to actions; at the same time that their main contention was for the immediateness of the "sense" by which we perceive these moral qualities. And they sought to establish the connection of the two doctrines by means of the benevolent feelings--which they held to be original and independent of private interest--and their immediate approval by the reflex or moral sense of the individual man. Similar ideas appear in Butler, at the same time that he tended to make conscience or the moral sense the standard of morality, as well as the source of our knowledge of it. They, as well as he, however, found it necessary to come back from the social or political to the individual point of view. Even if their conception of "the good" was not evolved from the nature of the individual man, their philosophical standpoint required them to leave broader ground, and show it to be the individual's natural goal. And in doing this, their constant tendency is to revert to egoistic arguments--demonstrating the complete harmony of virtue and interest, or attempting to prove to the individual that his own happiness consists in the exercise of the social affections. Thus Shaftesbury tries to show, by an empirical collection of results, that to have the "natural" (or social) affections too weak, or the private affections too strong, is a source of misery,[77] as well as the chief source of vice; and that, largely owing to the pleasure of virtuous action, it is "to the private interest and good of every one to work to the general good."[78] Hutcheson, again, devotes a large portion of his most mature work to allay the suspicion "that in following the impulse of our kind affections and the moral faculty we are counteracting our interests, and abandoning what may be of more consequence to our happiness than either this self-approbation or the applauses of others;"[79] while Butler, referring to virtuous conduct, says, in a well-known passage, that "when we sit down in a cool hour we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it."[80] Opposed as the whole school were to the selfish theory of human action, they never spoke of any sacrifice