"I proceed more fully to explain the common, which also I call the public good. By these words I understand the aggregate or sum of all those good things which either we can contribute towards, or are necessary to, the happiness of all rational beings, considered as collected into one body, each in his proper order."[1] The 'rational' beings referred to are God and all men. Animals are placed practically on the same level with the vegetable world. "The perfection[2] of these things is not properly,—at least not ultimately,—sought after; their use and concurrence with our actions towards the good of rational beings is the thing intended."
As it is not clear,—thus far, at any rate,—in what terms Cumberland would have defined the Good, if he had been forced to be more exact, it becomes important to consider his treatment of happiness. This is decidedly careless, and sometimes 'circular,' i.e., the Good is frequently defined in terms of happiness, while happiness is sometimes[3] defined as 'the possession of good things.' Indeed, Cumberland occasionally uses the words interchangeably even in the same sentence. However, allowing for his careless use of language, with which we are already familiar, his theory seems to be that human happiness results largely from action, particularly from the exercise of one's intellectual powers. For instance, in treating of the rewards that attend observance of the Laws of Nature, he speaks of "that pleasure or part of our happiness which is necessarily contained in such natural employment of the human faculties as leads to the best end … for all exercise of natural powers, especially of the highest order, in which we neither miss our aim nor turn out of the direct road, is naturally pleasant."[4] Now freedom from evil or uneasiness may depend upon external circumstances; no other pleasures than the so-called 'active' ones take their rise from within ourselves. Hence this is the only happiness to which moral
