e; that, however, is quite a
different question. But whatever else it was, it would certainly not be
moral, in any sense in which the word has yet been used.

The second supposition I spoke of, though less openly absurd than this
one, is really quite as false. It consists of a vague idea that, for
some reason or other, happiness can never be distributed in an equal
measure to all, unless it be not only equal in degree but also the same
in kind; and that the one kind that can be thus distributed is a kind
that is in harmony with our conceptions of moral excellence. Now this is
indeed so far true, that there are doubtless certain kinds of happiness
which, if enjoyed at all, can be enjoyed by the few alone; and that the
conditions under which alone the few can enjoy them disturb the
conditions of all happiness for the many. The general good, therefore,
gives us at once a test by which such kinds of happiness can be
condemned. But to eliminate these will by no means leave us a residue of
virtue; for these so far from being co-extensive with moral evil, do in
reality lie only on the borders of it; and the condemnation attached to
them is a legal rather than a moral one. It is based, that is, not so
much on the kind of happiness itself as on the circumstances under which
we are at present obliged to seek it. Thus the practice of seduction may
be said to be condemned sufficiently by the misery brought by it to its
victims, and its victims' families. But suppose the victims are willing,
and the families complacent, this ground of condemnation goes; though in
the eye of the moralist, matters in this last will be far worse than in
the former. It is therefore quite a mistake to say that the kind of
happiness which it is the end of life to realise is defined or narrowed
down appreciably by the fact that it is a general end. Vice can be
enjoyed in common, just as well as virtue; nor if wisely regulated will
it exhaust the tastes that it appeals to. Regulated with equal skill,
and with equal far-sightedness, it will take its place side by side with
virtue; nor will sociology or social morality give us any reason for
preferring the one to the other.

We may observe accordingly, that if happiness of some certain kind be
the moral test, what Professor Huxley calls '_social morality_'--the
rule that is, for producing the negative conditions of happiness, it is
not in itself morality at all. It may indeed become so, when the
consciousnes