=37.= There is, therefore, ample reason to suppose that Hedonism is in general a form of Naturalism--that its acceptance is generally due to the naturalistic fallacy. It is, indeed, only when we have detected this fallacy, when we have become clearly aware of the unique object which is meant by ‘good,’ that we are able to give to Hedonism the precise definition used above, ‘Nothing is good but pleasure’: and it may, therefore, be objected that, in attacking this doctrine under the name of Hedonism, I am attacking a doctrine which has never really been held. But it is very common to hold a doctrine, without being clearly aware what it is you hold; and though, when Hedonists argue in favour of what they call Hedonism, I admit that, in order to suppose their arguments valid, they must have before their minds something _other_ than the doctrine I have defined, yet, in order to draw the conclusions that they draw, it is necessary that they should _also_ have before their minds this doctrine. In fact, my justification for supposing that I shall have refuted _historical_ Hedonism, if I refute the proposition ‘Nothing is good but pleasure,’ is, that although Hedonists have rarely stated their principle in this form and though its truth, in this form, will certainly not follow from their arguments, yet their ethical _method_ will follow logically from nothing else. Any pretence of the hedonistic method, to discover to us practical truths which we should not otherwise have known, is founded on the principle that the course of action which will bring the greatest balance of pleasure is certainly the right one; and, failing an absolute proof that the greatest balance of pleasure _always_ coincides with the greatest balance of other goods, which it is not generally attempted to give, this principle can only be justified if pleasure be the sole good. Indeed it can hardly be doubted that Hedonists are distinguished by arguing, in disputed practical questions, _as if_ pleasure were the sole good; and that it is justifiable, for this among other reasons, to take this as _the_ ethical principle of Hedonism will, I hope, be made further evident by the whole discussion of this chapter.