be this as it may, it is so plainly inconsistent with some of the most obvious facts of human nature, and specially with the existence of that large and essential group of emotions which we call the sympathetic feelings, as well as with the constitution of family, social, and civic life, that it is unnecessary here further to discuss it.  The views now generally accepted as to the origin of society in the family or tribal relations are alike irreconcileable with the selfish psychology from which Hobbes educes his system of morality and with that ’state of nature in which every man was at war with every man’ from which he traces the growth of law and government.  Reverting, therefore, to those tests of conduct which recognise, the independent existence of social as well as self-regarding springs of action, I shall now make some remarks on the appropriateness and adequacy, for the purpose of designating such tests, of the three classes of terms, noticed above.  To begin with happiness or pleasure.  Taking happiness to mean the balance of pleasures over pains, and degrees of happiness the proportions of this balance, it will be sufficient if I confine myself to the word ‘pleasure.’  One statement, then, of the test of the morality or rightness of an action is that it should result in a larger amount of pleasure than pain to all those whom it affects.  But it is at once objected that there is the greatest variety of pleasures and pains, intellectual, moral, aesthetic, sympathetic, sensual, and so on; and it is asked how are we to determine their respective values, and to strike the balance between the conflicting kinds?  How much sensual pleasure would compensate for the pangs of an evil conscience, or what amount of intellectual enjoyment would allay the cravings of hunger or thirst?  The only escape from this difficulty is frankly to acknowledge that there are some pleasures and pains which are incommensurable with one other, and that, therefore, where they are concerned, we must forego the attempt at comparison, and so act as to compass the immeasurably greater pleasure or avoid the immeasurably greater pain.  Especially is this the case with the pleasures and pains attendant on the exercise of the moral feelings.  A man who is tormented with the recollection of having committed a great crime will, as the phrase goes, ‘take pleasure in nothing;’ while, similarly, a man who is enjoying the retrospect of having done his duty, in some important crisis, will care little for obloquy or even for the infliction of physical suffering.  Making this admission, then, as well as recognising the fact that our pleasures differ in quality as well as in volume, so that the pleasures of the higher part of our nature, the religious, the intellectual, the moral, the aesthetic, the sympathetic nature, affect us with a different kind of enjoyment from the sensual pleasures, or those which are derived from them, we may rightly regard the tendency to produce a balance of pleasure over pain as the test of the