But what is this “happiness” which is to be the standard of human actions? To answer this Vacherot places himself in the position of those ancient philosophers whom I discussed in _The Nature of Man_. He makes his point absolutely clear. “What is the ‘good’ for any being? The attaining of its purpose. What is the purpose of a being? The simple development of its nature. Apply this to man and morality. When human nature is known by observation and analysis, the deduction can be made as to what is the purpose, and the good, and therefore the law of man. For the conception of the good necessarily involves the idea of duty and of law to be imposed on the will. We have to fall back, then, on knowledge of man, but it must be complete knowledge, a recognition of the faculties, feelings, and inclinations that are peculiar to him and that distinguish him from animals” (p. 319). Here is a summary of this doctrine:—“Develop all our natural powers, subordinating those which are subsidiary to those which form the peculiar quality of human beings; this is the true economy of the little world we call human life; this is its purpose and this its law. The formula states in the most scientific and least doubtful form a very old truth, the foundation of all morality and the test of all its applications. If we seek to know what are justice, duty and virtue, we must look in the world itself, and not above or below it” (Op. 301). Professor Paulsen, a more recent critic of Kant, comes to a similar conclusion.[229] He thinks that Kant should have modified his formula in some such way as follows:—“The laws of morality are rules which might serve for a natural legislation for human life; in other words, rules that, when they guided conduct according to natural law, would result in the preservation and supreme development of human life.” From whatever side we examine the problem of morality, we come to submit conduct to the laws of human nature. Sutherland, a modern author who discusses morality by the scientific method, defines morality as “conduct guided by rational sympathy.” Such sympathy would not subordinate the chief good of others to an advantage less important but more immediate. Thus a mother may sympathise with her child when it has to take some unpleasant medicine; but if her sympathy be rational she will not let it interfere with the health of the child. In the foregoing case, sympathy has to be controlled by medical knowledge. In moral conduct generally, reason must be the determining factor, whatever be the inspiring motive of the conduct, whether it come from sympathy or from the sense of duty. And thus morality in the last resort must be based on scientific knowledge. III INDIVIDUALISM