Here, however, it may be held that Egoism does not properly regard the agent’s own greatest happiness as what he “ought” to aim at: but only as the ultimate end for the realisation of which he has, on the whole, a predominant desire; which may be temporarily overcome by particular passions and appetites, but ordinarily regains its predominance when these transient impulses have spent their force. I quite recognise that this is a view widely taken of egoistic action, and I propose to consider it in a subsequent chapter.[39] But even if we discard the belief, that any end of action is unconditionally or “categorically” prescribed by reason, the notion ‘ought’ as above explained is not thereby eliminated from our practical reasonings: it still remains in the “hypothetical imperative” which prescribes the fittest means to any end that we may have determined to aim at. When (_e.g._) a physician says, “If you wish to be healthy you ought to rise early,” this is not the same thing as saying “early rising is an indispensable condition of the attainment of health.” This latter proposition expresses the relation of physiological facts on which the former is founded; but it is not merely this relation of facts that the word ‘ought’ imports: it also implies the unreasonableness of adopting an end and refusing to adopt the means indispensable to its attainment. It may perhaps be argued that this is not only unreasonable but impossible: since adoption of an end means the preponderance of a desire for it, and if aversion to the indispensable means causes them not to be adopted although recognised as indispensable, the desire for the end is _not_ preponderant and it ceases to be adopted. But this view is due, in my opinion, to a defective psychological analysis. According to my observation of consciousness, the adoption of an end as paramount--either absolutely or within certain limits--is quite a distinct psychical phenomenon from desire: it is a kind of volition, though it is, of course, specifically different from a volition initiating a particular immediate action. As a species intermediate between the two, we may place resolutions to act in a certain way at some future time: we continually make such resolutions, and sometimes when the time comes for carrying them out, we do in fact act otherwise under the influence of passion or mere habit, without consciously cancelling our previous resolve. This inconsistency of will our practical reason condemns as irrational, even apart from any judgment of approbation or disapprobation on either volition considered by itself. There is a similar inconsistency between the adoption of an end and a general refusal to take whatever means we may see to be indispensable to its attainment: and if, when the time comes, we do not take such means while yet we do not consciously retract our adoption of the end, it can hardly be denied that we ‘ought’ in consistency to act otherwise than we do.