And in the second place, until he knows that the happiness in question is something of extreme value he will be unable to feel much ardour in helping to make it possible.

If we knew that the social organism in its state of completest health had no higher pleasure than sleep and eating, the cause of its completest health would hardly excite enthusiasm.

And even if we did not rebel against any sacrifices for so poor a result as this, we should at the best be resigned rather than blest in making them.

The nearest approach to a moral end that the science of sociology will of itself supply to us is an end that, in all probability, men will not follow at all, or that will produce in them, if they do, no happier state than a passionless and passive acquiescence.

If we want anything more than this we must deal with happiness itself, not with the negative conditions of it.