The Utilitarian, I am perfectly aware, does not wish me to keep the end continually before me, but rather to have my eye on the accredited means. The question is not, however, what the Utilitarian wishes, but what his theory justifies and demands. One of the most serious objections to Hedonism is that, as we have seen, it is not in earnest with its own conclusions. It is no argument in favour of a theory, it is surely rather an argument against it, that it can not teach the legitimate consequences of its principles.
The greatest amount of pleasure then, if we take it for our end, we have found to be unrealizable, to be non- or im-moral, and lastly in practice to be an unworkable doctrine. All this time we have taken the end for granted. But now we are to ask, What ground is there for taking the pleasure of the sentient creation as the moral end? What possible reason is there why I should look on this as that for which everything else must be given up, even my own pleasure and my own life? And here I think Hedonism is altogether helpless. The consistent, and the only consistent position, is to say that I desire my own pleasure, that the pleasure of others is in many ways conducive to my own, and that desiring the end I must desire the means also. But this is a return to the doctrine we discussed above, viz. that my pleasure is the end; and to accept this doctrine is to leave the standpoint of modern Utilitarianism, and to say, Its end is not an end; it is or it may be a mere means.
