He had never '_wavered in the conviction_,' he tells us, even all through his perplexity, that, if life had any value at all, '_happiness_' was its one '_end_,' and the '_test of its rule of conduct_;' but he now thought that this end was to be attained by not making it the direct end, but '_by fixing the mind on some object other than one's own happiness; on the happiness of others--on the improvement of mankind_.' The same thing is being told us on all sides, and in countless ways.

The common name for this theory is Utilitarianism; and its great boast, and its special professed strength, is that it gives morals a positive basis in the acknowledged science of sociology.

Whether sociology can really supply such a basis is what we now have to enquire.

There are many practical rules for which it no doubt can do so; but will these rules correspond with what we mean by morals?
Now the province of the sociologist, within certain limits, is clear enough.

His study is to the social body what the study of the physician is to the individual body.