these men has, no doubt, acted
from self-interest. But we gain nothing by knowing this, except the
pleasure, if it be one, of multiplying useless words. In fact, this
principle is just as recondite and just as important as the great truth
that whatever is, is. If a philosopher were always to state facts in
the following form--"There is a shower: but whatever is, is; therefore,
there is a shower,"--his reasoning would be perfectly sound; but we
do not apprehend that it would materially enlarge the circle of human
knowledge. And it is equally idle to attribute any importance to a
proposition, which, when interpreted means only that a man had rather do
what he had rather do.

If the doctrine, that men always act from self-interest, be laid down in
any other sense than this--if the meaning of the word self-interest
be narrowed so as to exclude any one of the motives which may by
possibility act on any human being, the proposition ceases to be
identical: but at the same time it ceases to be true.

What we have said of the word "self-interest" applies to all the
synonymes and circumlocutions which are employed to convey the same
meaning; pain and pleasure, happiness and misery, objects of desire, and
so forth.

The whole art of Mr Mill's essay consists in one simple trick of
legerdemain. It consists in using words of the sort which we have been
describing first in one sense and then in another. Men will take the
objects of their desire if they can. Unquestionably:--but this is an
identical proposition: for an object of desire means merely a thing
which a man will procure if he can. Nothing can possibly be inferred
from a maxim of this kind. When we see a man take something we shall
know that it was an object of his desire. But till then we have no means
of judging with certainty what he desires or what he will take. The
general proposition, however, having been admitted, Mr Mill proceeds to
reason as if men had no desires but those which can be gratified only by
spoliation and oppression. It then becomes easy to deduce doctrines of
vast importance from the original axiom. The only misfortune is, that by
thus narrowing the meaning of the word desire the axiom becomes false,
and all the doctrines consequent upon it are false likewise.

When we pass beyond those maxims which it is impossible to deny without
a contradiction in terms, and which, therefore, do not enable us to
advance a single step in practical knowledge, we do