objection to a theory because it gives at once a clear and definite view of the final end of conduct: though we must not refrain from inquiring how the end is known. [Sidenote: Force of the objection when attempt made to interpret greatest happiness,] [Sidenote: by showing the way in which men can obtain happiness,] But the bearing of the objection to utilitarianism becomes apparent when we try to give some definite meaning to the end greatest happiness. If we are content to receive it as simply a very general--or rather abstract--expression for our ideal, nothing need be said, except to put the question, which has been already asked, How we came by such an ideal? The difficulty arises when we attempt to apply the ideal to practice. With men of fixed character in an unchanging society, our way might be comparatively clear. But, when both character and social relations vary, and their variation extends to susceptibility to pleasure and pain, and depends on the actions adopted to obtain the end, utilitarianism may well appear to be without a principle by which to determine between different kinds of conduct. To an objection similar to this, but taken from the old point of view, that we have no time before acting to sum up the pleasurable and painful consequences of our actions, Mill replied that there had been "ample time--namely, the whole past duration of the human species"[147]--in which to estimate the felicific results of conduct. The variability of faculty and function makes this answer lack convincing power. Yet, perhaps, we are apt at present to disregard the real value of this collective experience of the race. True, human nature is not a constant; yet certain of its qualities are persistent and constant enough not to leave us in doubt as to whether, say, murder and theft are beneficial or injurious to happiness. There are at least certain actions, and, still more, certain abstentions, upon which human security--the basis of happiness--depends. But it would seem that those "secondary laws" may be more properly regarded as conditions of life than means to pleasure. [Sidenote: and a maximum of it.]