eral ambiguities;
it may mean either pleasure or an ideal life, happiness subjective or
objective, in this world or in another, of ourselves only or of
our neighbours and of all men everywhere. By the modern founder of
Utilitarianism the self-regarding and disinterested motives of action
are included under the same term, although they are commonly opposed
by us as benevolence and self-love. The word happiness has not the
definiteness or the sacredness of 'truth' and 'right'; it does
not equally appeal to our higher nature, and has not sunk into the
conscience of mankind. It is associated too much with the comforts and
conveniences of life; too little with 'the goods of the soul which we
desire for their own sake.' In a great trial, or danger, or temptation,
or in any great and heroic action, it is scarcely thought of. For these
reasons 'the greatest happiness' principle is not the true foundation of
ethics. But though not the first principle, it is the second, which is
like unto it, and is often of easier application. For the larger part of
human actions are neither right nor wrong, except in so far as they tend
to the happiness of mankind (Introd. to Gorgias and Philebus).

The same question reappears in politics, where the useful or expedient
seems to claim a larger sphere and to have a greater authority. For
concerning political measures, we chiefly ask: How will they affect
the happiness of mankind? Yet here too we may observe that what we term
expediency is merely the law of right limited by the conditions of human
society. Right and truth are the highest aims of government as well as
of individuals; and we ought not to lose sight of them because we cannot
directly enforce them. They appeal to the better mind of nations; and
sometimes they are too much for merely temporal interests to resist.
They are the watchwords which all men use in matters of public policy,
as well as in their private dealings; the peace of Europe may be said
to depend upon them. In the most commercial and utilitarian states
of society the power of ideas remains. And all the higher class of
statesmen have in them something of that idealism which Pericles is said
to have gathered from the teaching of Anaxagoras. They recognise that
the true leader of men must be above the motives of ambition, and
that national character is of greater value than material comfort and
prosperity. And this is the order of thought in Plato; first, he expects
his cit