sturbs the whole calculation which
follows, this fundamental uncertainty about the word vitiates all the
applications of it. Must we not admit that a notion so uncertain in
meaning, so void of content, so at variance with common language and
opinion, does not comply adequately with either of our two requirements?
It can neither strike the imaginative faculty, nor give an explanation
of phenomena which is in accordance with our individual experience. It
is indefinite; it supplies only a partial account of human actions:
it is one among many theories of philosophers. It may be compared
with other notions, such as the chief good of Plato, which may be best
expressed to us under the form of a harmony, or with Kant's obedience to
law, which may be summed up under the word 'duty,' or with the Stoical
'Follow nature,' and seems to have no advantage over them. All of these
present a certain aspect of moral truth. None of them are, or indeed
profess to be, the only principle of morals.

And this brings us to speak of the most serious objection to the
utilitarian system--its exclusiveness. There is no place for Kant or
Hegel, for Plato and Aristotle alongside of it. They do not reject the
greatest happiness principle, but it rejects them. Now the phenomena of
moral action differ, and some are best explained upon one principle and
some upon another: the virtue of justice seems to be naturally connected
with one theory of morals, the virtues of temperance and benevolence
with another. The characters of men also differ; and some are more
attracted by one aspect of the truth, some by another. The firm
stoical nature will conceive virtue under the conception of law, the
philanthropist under that of doing good, the quietist under that of
resignation, the enthusiast under that of faith or love. The upright man
of the world will desire above all things that morality should be plain
and fixed, and should use language in its ordinary sense. Persons of an
imaginative temperament will generally be dissatisfied with the words
'utility' or 'pleasure': their principle of right is of a far higher
character--what or where to be found they cannot always distinctly
tell;--deduced from the laws of human nature, says one; resting on the
will of God, says another; based upon some transcendental idea which
animates more worlds than one, says a third:

on nomoi prokeintai upsipodes, ouranian
di aithera teknothentes.

To satisfy an imaginati