done by modern _moralists_, may be admitted. But, when Prof. Sidgwick points this out (III. XIV. § 5, Div. III.), he should have also pointed out that this identification has by no means been made in ordinary thought. When the plain man says ‘my own interest,’ he does _not_ mean ‘my own pleasure’--he does not commonly even include this--he means my own advancement, my own reputation, the getting of a better income etc., etc. That Prof. Sidgwick should not have noticed this, and that he should give the reason he gives for the fact that the ancient _moralists_ did not identify ‘my own interest’ with my own pleasure, seems to be due to his having failed to notice that very confusion in the conception of ‘my own good’ which I am now to point out. That confusion has, perhaps, been more clearly perceived by Plato than by any other moralist, and to point it out suffices to refute Prof. Sidgwick’s own view that Egoism is rational. What, then, is meant by ‘my own good’? In what sense can a thing be good _for me_? It is obvious, if we reflect, that the only thing which can belong to me, which can be _mine_, is something which is good, and not the fact that it is good. When, therefore, I talk of anything I get as ‘my own good,’ I must mean either that the thing I get is good, or that my possessing it is good. In both cases it is only the thing or the possession of it which is _mine_, and not _the goodness_ of that thing or that possession. There is no longer any meaning in attaching the ‘my’ to our predicate, and saying: The possession of this _by me_ is _my_ good. Even if we interpret this by ‘My possession of this is what _I_ think good,’ the same still holds: for _what_ I think is that my possession of it is good _simply_; and, if I think rightly, then the truth is that my possession of it _is_ good simply--not, in any sense, _my_ good; and, if I think wrongly, it is not good at all. In short, when I talk of a thing as ‘my own good’ all that I can mean is that something which will be exclusively mine, as my own pleasure is mine (whatever be the various senses of this relation denoted by ‘possession’), is also _good absolutely_; or rather that my possession of it is _good absolutely_. The _good_ of it can in no possible sense be ‘private’ or belong to me; any more than a thing can _exist_ privately or _for_ one person only. The only reason I can have for aiming at ‘my own good,’ is that it is _good absolutely_ that what I so call should belong to me--_good absolutely_ that I should _have_ something, which, if I have it, others cannot have. But if it is _good absolutely_ that I should have it, then everyone else has as much reason for aiming at _my_ having it, as I have myself. If, therefore, it is true of _any_ single man’s ‘interest’ or ‘happiness’ that it ought to be his sole ultimate end, this can only mean that _that_ man’s ‘interest’ or ‘happiness’ is _the sole good, the_ Universal Good, and the only thing that anybody ought to aim at.