Morals, as I conceive them, are concerned with ends of action: and principally with _ultimate_ ends of action. An end of action, in so far as it is ultimate, is one which is pursued for itself alone, and not as a means to some other end. Of course an end may be, and constantly is, both ultimate and contributory. It is sought for on its own account, and also as an instrument for procuring something else. It is mainly in the first of these capacities, however, that it concerns morality. For the purposes of this lecture I shall classify ultimate ends as either egoistic or altruistic—egoistic ends being those that are immediately connected with, or centred in, the agent; altruistic ends being those that are not. But I beg you to remember that this distinction does not correspond to that between right and wrong. Egoism is not necessarily vicious, nor is altruism necessarily virtuous. Indeed, as I shall have occasion to point out later, the blackest vices, such as cruelty and hatred, are often altruistic. This is an unusual, though not, I think, an unreasonable, use of language. “Egoism” and “altruism” are terms historically associated with the moral theories which regard happiness as the only end of action, but are under the necessity of distinguishing between actions designed to secure the happiness of the agent and actions designed to secure the happiness of other people. I do not accept these theories, though I borrow their phraseology. Happiness may, or may not, be the highest of all ultimate ends, the one to which all others should give way. But it seems to me quite misleading to call it the only one. To describe the sensual man, the vain man, the merely selfish man, the miser, the ascetic, the man moved by rational self-love, the man absorbed in the task of “self-realisation,” the man consumed by the passion for posthumous fame, as all pursuing the same egoistic end by different means, is surely to confuse distinctions of great moral importance without any gain of scientific clarity. In like manner, to suppose that the man who spends himself in the service (say) of his family, his country, or his church, is only striving for the “happiness” of the human race, or of certain selected members of the human race, is (it seems to me) to ignore the plain teaching of daily experience. As there are many egoistic ends besides our own happiness, so there are many altruistic ends besides the happiness of others. The extended sense, therefore, in which I employ these terms seems justified by facts. II