We are living in the second age of utilitarianism, when the charm of
novelty and the fervour of the first disciples has passed away. The
doctrine is no longer stated in the forcible paradoxical manner of
Bentham, but has to be adapted to meet objections; its corners are
rubbed off, and the meaning of its most characteristic expressions is
softened. The array of the enemy melts away when we approach him. The
greatest happiness of the greatest number was a great original idea when
enunciated by Bentham, which leavened a generation and has left its mark
on thought and civilization in all succeeding times. His grasp of it
had the intensity of genius. In the spirit of an ancient philosopher he
would have denied that pleasures differed in kind, or that by happiness
he meant anything but pleasure. He would perhaps have revolted us by his
thoroughness. The 'guardianship of his doctrine' has passed into other
hands; and now we seem to see its weak points, its ambiguities, its want
of exactness while assuming the highest exactness, its one-sidedness,
its paradoxical explanation of several of the virtues. No philosophy has
ever stood this criticism of the next generation, though the founders
of all of them have imagined that they were built upon a rock. And the
utilitarian system, like others, has yielded to the inevitable analysis.
Even in the opinion of 'her admirers she has been terribly damaged'
(Phil.), and is no longer the only moral philosophy, but one among many
which have contributed in various degrees to the intellectual progress
of mankind.
But because the utilitarian philosophy can no longer claim 'the prize,'
we must not refuse to acknowledge the great benefits conferred by it on
the world. All philosophies are refuted in their turn, says the sceptic,
and he looks forward to all future systems sharing the fate of the past.
All philosophies remain, says the thinker; they have done a great work
in their own day, and they supply posterity with aspects of the truth
and with instruments of thought. Though they may be shorn of their
glory, they retain their place in the organism of knowledge.