But then for the familiar phrase of the 'greatest happiness principle,' it seems as if we ought now to read 'the noblest happiness principle,' 'the happiness of others principle'--the principle not of the greatest, but of the highest pleasure, pursued with no more regard to our own immediate interest than is required by the law of self-preservation. Transfer the thought of happiness to another life, dropping the external circumstances which form so large a part of our idea of happiness in this, and the meaning of the word becomes indistinguishable from holiness, harmony, wisdom, love. By the slight addition 'of others,' all the associations of the word are altered; we seem to have passed over from one theory of morals to the opposite. For allowing that the happiness of others is reflected on ourselves, and also that every man must live before he can do good to others, still the last limitation is a very trifling exception, and the happiness of another is very far from compensating for the loss of our own. According to Mr. Mill, he would best carry out the principle of utility who sacrificed his own pleasure most to that of his fellow-men. But if so, Hobbes and Butler, Shaftesbury and Hume, are not so far apart as they and their followers imagine. The thought of self and the thought of others are alike superseded in the more general notion of the happiness of mankind at large. But in this composite good, until society becomes perfected, the friend of man himself has generally the least share, and may be a great sufferer. And now what objection have we to urge against a system of moral philosophy so beneficent, so enlightened, so ideal, and at the same time so practical,--so Christian, as we may say without exaggeration,--and which has the further advantage of resting morality on a principle intelligible to all capacities? Have we not found that which Socrates and Plato 'grew old in seeking'? Are we not desirous of happiness, at any rate for ourselves and our friends, if not for all mankind? If, as is natural, we begin by thinking of ourselves first, we are easily led on to think of others; for we cannot help acknowledging that what is right for us is the right and inheritance of others. We feel the advantage of an abstract principle wide enough and strong enough to override all the particularisms of mankind; which acknowledges a universal good, truth, right; which is capable of inspiring men like a passion, and is the symbol of a cause for which they are ready to contend to their life's end.