e of 10,000 souls
which would not be good, or not good in the same sense, for a community
of 100,000,000 souls. Surely it needs no reasoning to prove that our
power to do our duty to others is affected by the number of others to
whom duty has to be done--it makes a difference where there are 10,000
of men or 100,000,000. Similarly with the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. What is the _greatest_ number? A great deal that has
been said about this would not have been said if we had considered that
the _greatest number_ itself is left at the disposal of forces outside
the present scope of our own will. Even the proposal to sell our goods
and give the proceeds to the poor would surely be affected, from the
moral point of view, by the number of the poor who were to receive the
distribution. Were this so small that the poor would get five pounds
apiece it would be one question; were it so large that they would
receive a halfpenny apiece it would be another question. Thus we may
conclude that the progress of the mechanical arts with the consequent
increase in the bulk of the human race has not solved the problem of
moral progress, but only placed that problem in a new and more
perplexing context. A similar conclusion would meet us if we were to
consider the parallel increase of the wealth of the world. The moral
question is not about the amount of wealth the world possesses, but
about the way men spend it and the use they make of it. Industrially
speaking, the human race has made its fortune during the last hundred
years. But has it made up its mind what to do with the fortune? And has
its mind been made up in the right way? To raise these questions is to
see that progress from the economic point of view may be the reverse of
progress from the moral. But I shall not further enlarge upon this--the
theme being too familiar.

The third question which relates itself to moral progress is that of
Government. Now Government, I need hardly say, is not an end in itself.
It is a device which man has set up to help him in attaining the true
end of his life. To make up our minds how we ought to be governed is
therefore impossible unless we have previously made up our minds how we
ought to live. What might be a good government for a people whose end is
industrial success might be a very bad one for a people who had some
other end in view. Well, then, are we well governed at the present time?
Are we better governed than we were? Ha