To sum up: Egoism, if we merely understand by it a method that aims at Self-realisation, seems to be a form into which almost any ethical system may be thrown, without modifying its essential characteristics. And even when further defined Egoistic Hedonism, it is still imperfectly distinguishable from Intuitionism if quality of pleasures is admitted as a consideration distinct from and overruling quantity. There remains then Pure or Quantitative Egoistic Hedonism, which, as a method essentially distinct from all others and widely maintained to be rational, seems to deserve a detailed examination. According to this the rational agent regards quantity of consequent pleasure and pain to himself as alone important in choosing between alternatives of action; and seeks always the greatest attainable surplus of pleasure over pain--which, without violation of usage, we may designate as his ‘greatest happiness.’ It seems to be this view and attitude of mind which is most commonly intended by the vaguer terms ‘egoism,’ ‘egoistic’: and therefore I shall allow myself to use these terms in this more precise signification. FOOTNOTES: [78] Thus the end for which an individual is supposed to renounce the unlimited rights of the State of Nature is said (_Leviathan_, chap. xiv.) to be “nothing else but the security of a man’s person in this life, and the means of preserving life so as not to be weary of it.” [79] Schiller’s _Wallenstein_. [80] I shall afterwards try to explain how it comes about that, in modern thought, the proposition ‘My own Good is my only reasonable ultimate end’ is not a mere tautology, even though we define ‘Good’ as that at which it is ultimately reasonable to aim. Cf. _post_, chap. ix. and Book iii. chaps. xiii. xiv. [81] Aristotle’s selection of εὐδαιμονία to denote what he elsewhere calls “Human” or “Practicable” good, and the fact that, after all, we have no better rendering for εὐδαιμονία than “Happiness” or “Felicity,” has caused no little misunderstanding of his system. Thus when Stewart (_Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers_, Book ii. chap. ii.) says that “by many of the best of the ancient moralists ... the whole of ethics was reduced to this question ... What is most conducive on the whole to our happiness?” the remark, if not exactly false, is certain to mislead his readers; since by Stewart, as by most English writers, “Happiness” is definitely conceived as consisting of “Pleasures” or “Enjoyments.”