s to be desired, but that it is to be
desired disinterestedly, for itself. Whatever may be the opinion of
utilitarian moralists as to the original conditions by which virtue is
made virtue; however they may believe (as they do) that actions and
dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than
virtue; yet this being granted, and it having been decided, from
considerations of this description, what _is_ virtuous, they not only
place virtue at the very head of the things which are good as means to
the ultimate end, but they also recognise as a psychological fact the
possibility of its being, to the individual, a good in itself, without
looking to any end beyond it; and hold, that the mind is not in a right
state, not in a state conformable to Utility, not in the state most
conducive to the general happiness, unless it does love virtue in this
manner--as a thing desirable in itself, even although, in the individual
instance, it should not produce those other desirable consequences which
it tends to produce, and on account of which it is held to be virtue.
This opinion is not, in the smallest degree, a departure from the
Happiness principle. The ingredients of happiness are very various, and
each of them is desirable in itself, and not merely when considered as
swelling an aggregate. The principle of utility does not mean that any
given pleasure, as music, for instance, or any given exemption from
pain, as for example health, are to be looked upon as means to a
collective something termed happiness, and to be desired on that
account. They are desired and desirable in and for themselves; besides
being means, they are a part of the end. Virtue, according to the
utilitarian doctrine, is not naturally and originally part of the end,
but it is capable of becoming so; and in those who love it
disinterestedly it has become so, and is desired and cherished, not as a
means to happiness, but as a part of their happiness.

To illustrate this farther, we may remember that virtue is not the only
thing, originally a means, and which if it were not a means to anything
else, would be and remain indifferent, but which by association with
what it is a means to, comes to be desired for itself, and that too with
the utmost intensity. What, for example, shall we say of the love of
money? There is nothing originally more desirable about money than about
any heap of glittering pebbles. Its worth is solely that of the things
whi