be led to adopt Egoism and not Utilitarianism. =63.= The second cause I have to give why Egoism should be thought reasonable, is simply its confusion with that other kind of Egoism--Egoism as a doctrine of means. This second Egoism has a right to say: You ought to pursue your own happiness, sometimes at all events; it may even say: Always. And when we find it saying this we are apt to forget its proviso: But only as a means to something else. The fact is we are in an imperfect state; we cannot get the ideal all at once. And hence it is often our bounden duty, we often _absolutely_ ‘_ought_,’ to do things which are good only or chiefly as means: we have to do the best we can, what is absolutely ‘right,’ but not what is absolutely good. Of this I shall say more hereafter. I only mention it here because I think it is much more plausible to say that we ought to pursue our own pleasure as a means than as an end, and that this doctrine, through confusion, lends some of its plausibility to the utterly different doctrine of Egoism proper: My own greatest pleasure is the only good thing. =64.= So much for Egoism. Of Utilitarianism not much need be said; but two points may seem deserving of notice. The first is that this name, like that of Egoism, does not naturally suggest that all our actions are to be judged according to the degree in which they are a means to _pleasure_. Its natural meaning is that the standard of right and wrong in conduct is its tendency to promote the _interest_ of everybody. And by _interest_ is commonly meant a variety of different goods, classed together only because they are what a man commonly desires for himself, so far as his desires have not that psychological quality which is meant by ‘moral.’ The ‘useful’ thus means, and was in ancient Ethics systematically used to mean, what is a means to the attainment of goods other than moral goods. It is quite an unjustifiable assumption that these goods are only good as means to pleasure or that they are commonly so regarded. The chief reason for adopting the name ‘Utilitarianism’ was, indeed, merely to emphasize the fact that right and wrong conduct must be judged by its results--as a means, in opposition to the strictly Intuitionistic view that certain ways of acting were right and others wrong, whatever their results might be. In thus insisting that what is right must mean what produces the best possible results Utilitarianism is fully justified. But with this correct contention there has been historically, and very naturally, associated a double error. (1) The best possible results were assumed to consist only in a limited class of goods, roughly coinciding with those which were popularly distinguished as the results of merely ‘useful’ or ‘interested’ actions; and these again were hastily assumed to be good only as means to pleasure. (2) The Utilitarians tend to regard everything as a mere means, neglecting the