On the whole, then, I conclude that the notion of Self-realisation is to be avoided in a treatise on ethical method, on account of its indefiniteness: and for a similar reason we must discard a common account of Egoism which describes its ultimate end as the ‘good’ of the individual; for the term ‘good’ may cover all possible views of the ultimate end of rational conduct. Indeed it may be said that Egoism in this sense was assumed in the whole ethical controversy of ancient Greece; that is, it was assumed on all sides that a rational individual[80] would make the pursuit of his own good his supreme aim: the controverted question was whether this Good was rightly conceived as Pleasure or Virtue, or any _tertium quid_. Nor is the ambiguity removed if we follow Aristotle in confining our attention to the Good attainable in human life, and call this Well-being (Εὐδαιμονία). For we may still argue with the Stoics, that virtuous or excellent activities and not pleasures are the elements of which true human Well-being is composed. Indeed Aristotle himself adopts this view, so far as to determine the details of Well-being accordingly: though he does not, with the Stoics, regard the pursuit of Virtue and that of Pleasure as competing alternatives, holding rather that the “best pleasure” is an inseparable concomitant of the most excellent action. Even the English term Happiness is not free from a similar ambiguity.[81] It seems, indeed, to be commonly used in Bentham’s way as convertible with Pleasure,--or rather as denoting that of which the constituents are pleasures;--and it is in this sense that I think it most convenient to use it. Sometimes, however, in ordinary discourse, the term is rather employed to denote a particular kind of agreeable consciousness, which is distinguished from and even contrasted with definite specific pleasures--such as the gratifications of sensual appetite or other keen and vehement desires--as being at once calmer and more indefinite: we may characterise it as the feeling which accompanies the normal activity of a “healthy mind in a healthy body,” and of which specific pleasures seem to be rather stimulants than elements. Sometimes, again--though, I think, with a more manifest divergence from common usage--“happiness” or “true happiness” is understood in a definitely non-hedonistic sense, as denoting results other than agreeable feelings of any kind.[82]