When directed toward inanimate objects, the passions and affections[1] are Hope, Fear, Despair, and its unnamed opposite. As a matter of fact, however, our pleasures and pains depend quite as much upon other conscious agents as upon inanimate objects. Hence, as Gay says: "As I perceive that my happiness is dependent on others, I cannot but judge whatever I apprehend to be proper to excite them to endeavor to promote my happiness, to be a means of happiness, i.e., I cannot but approve it." Moreover, since others can be induced to act for my happiness only by the prospect of their own future happiness, I cannot but approve of "the annexing pleasure to such actions of theirs as are undertaken upon my account." And, since we desire what we approve of,[2] we desire the happiness of those who have done us good. That in the agent (a voluntary action or series of such actions) which constitutes the ground for the approbation and love just accounted for, is called the 'merit' of the agent; the contrary, 'demerit.'
But here a difficulty arises. How can there be ' merit ' in the action of another, when that action is performed (ultimately) for the agent's own happiness? The main reason why this seems paradoxical, or worse, to common-sense is that common-sense does not distinguish between an 'inferior' and an 'ultimate' end. In by far the greater part of human actions, it is an 'inferior' end that the agent has in mind. Thus, though the happiness of the agent is always the 'ultimate' end, all that the beau immediately desires is to please by his dress, and all that the student immediately desires is knowledge. For any such 'particular' end, we may, of course, inquire the reason; but to expect a reason for the 'ultimate' end is absurd. "To ask why I pursue happiness, will admit of no other answer than an explanation of the terms."
But, to proceed, when the 'particular' end of any action is the happiness of another, that action is 'meritorious.' On the other hand, "when an agent has a view in any particular action distinct from my happiness, and that view is his only motive to
