Let us consider this doctrine. Bentham seems to imply, so Prof. Sidgwick says, that the word ‘right’ _means_ ‘conducive to general happiness.’ Now this, by itself, need not necessarily involve the naturalistic fallacy. For the word ‘right’ is very commonly appropriated to actions which lead to the attainment of what is good; which are regarded as _means_ to the ideal and not as ends-in-themselves. This use of ‘right,’ as denoting what is good as a means, whether or not it be also good as an end, is indeed the use to which I shall confine the word. Had Bentham been using ‘right’ in this sense, it might be perfectly consistent for him to _define_ right as ‘conducive to the general happiness,’ _provided only_ (and notice this proviso) he had already proved, or laid down as an axiom, that general happiness was _the_ good, or (what is equivalent to this) that general happiness alone was good. For in that case he would have already defined _the_ good as general happiness (a position perfectly consistent, as we have seen, with the contention that ‘good’ is indefinable), and, since right was to be defined as ‘conducive to _the_ good,’ it would actually _mean_ ‘conducive to general happiness.’ But this method of escape from the charge of having committed the naturalistic fallacy has been closed by Bentham himself. For his fundamental principle is, we see, that the greatest happiness of all concerned is the _right_ and proper _end_ of human action. He applies the word ‘right,’ therefore, to the end, as such, not only to the means which are conducive to it; and, that being so, right can no longer be defined as ‘conducive to the general happiness,’ without involving the fallacy in question. For now it is obvious that the definition of right as conducive to general happiness can be used by him in support of the fundamental principle that general happiness is the right end; instead of being itself derived from that principle. If right, by definition, means conducive to general happiness, then it is obvious that general happiness is the right end. It is not necessary now first to prove or assert that general happiness is the right end, before right is defined as conducive to general happiness--a perfectly valid procedure; but on the contrary the definition of right as conducive to general happiness proves general happiness to be the right end--a perfectly invalid procedure, since in this case the statement that ‘general happiness is the right end of human action’ is not an ethical principle at all, but either, as we have seen, a proposition about the meaning of words, or else a proposition about the _nature_ of general happiness, not about its rightness or goodness.