It is not then self-evident, as Bentham alleges, that happiness is an intelligible end while justice is not; but contrariwise examination makes evident the greater intelligibility of justice as an end. And analysis shows why it is more intelligible. For justice, or equity, or equalness, is concerned exclusively with _quantity_ under _stated conditions_; whereas happiness is concerned with both _quantity_ and _quality_ under _conditions not stated_. When, as in case of theft, a benefit is taken while no equivalent benefit is yielded--when, as in case of adulterated goods bought or base coin paid, that which is agreed to be given in exchange as of equal value is not given, but something of less value--when, as in case of broken contract, the obligation on one side has been discharged while there has been no discharge, or incomplete discharge, of the obligation on the other; we see that, _the circumstances being specified_, the injustice complained of refers to the relative amounts of actions, or products, or benefits, the natures of which are recognized only so far as is needful for saying whether _as much_ has been given, or done, or allowed, by each concerned, as was implied by tacit or overt understanding to be _an equivalent_. But when the end proposed is happiness, _the circumstances remaining unspecified_, the problem is that of estimating both quantities and qualities, unhelped by any such definite measures as acts of exchange imply, or as contracts imply, or as are implied by the differences between the doings of one aggressing and one aggressed upon. The mere fact that Bentham himself includes as elements in the estimation of each pleasure or pain, its intensity, duration, certainty, and proximity, suffices to show how difficult is this problem. And when it is remembered that all pleasures and pains, not felt in particular cases only but in the aggregate of cases, and severally regarded under these four aspects, have to be compared with one another and their relative values determined, simply by introspection; it will be manifest both that the problem is complicated by the addition of indefinite judgments of qualities to indefinite measures of quantities, and that it is further complicated by the multitudinousness of these vague estimations to be gone through and summed up. But now passing over this assertion of Bentham that happiness is a more intelligible end than justice, which we find to be the reverse of truth, let us note the several implications of the doctrine that the supreme legislative body ought to make the greatest happiness of the greatest number its immediate aim.