But the utilitarians do not deny that virtue is a thing to be desired.  The very reverse.  They maintain that it is to be desired, and that for itself.  Although considering that what makes virtue is the tendency to promote happiness, yet they hold that the mind is not in a right state, not in a state conformable to Utility, not in the state conducive to the general happiness, unless it has adopted this essential instrumentality so warmly as to love it for its own sake.  It is necessary to the carrying out of utility that certain things, originally of the nature of means, should come by association to be a part of the final end.  Thus health is but a means, and yet we cherish it as strongly as we do any of the ultimate pleasures and pains.  So virtue is not originally an end, but it is capable of becoming so; it is to be desired and cherished not solely as a means to happiness, but as a part of happiness.

The notorious instance of money exemplifies this operation.  The same may be said of power and fame; although these are ends as well as means.  We should be but ill provided with happiness, were it not for this provision of nature, whereby, things, originally indifferent, but conducive to the satisfaction of our primitive desires, become in themselves sources of pleasure, of even greater value than the primitive pleasures, both in permanency and in the extent of their occupation of our life.  Virtue is originally valuable as bringing pleasure and avoiding pain; but by association it may be felt as a good in itself, and be desired as intensely as any other good; with this superiority over money, power, or fame, that it makes the individual a blessing to society, while these others may make him a curse.

With the allowance thus made for the effect of association, the author considers it proved that there is in reality nothing desired except happiness.  Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is not desired for itself till it has become such.  Human nature is so constituted, he thinks, that we desire nothing but what is either a part of happiness or a means of happiness; and no other proof is required that these are the only things desirable.  Whether this psychological assertion be correct, must be determined by the self-consciousness and observation of the most practised observers of human nature.

It may be alleged that, although desire always tends to happiness, yet Will, as shown by actual conduct, is different from desire.  We persist in a course of action long after the original desire has faded.  But this is merely an instance of that familiar fact, the power of habit, and is nowise confined to the virtuous actions.  Will is amenable to habit; we may will from habit what we no longer desire for itself, or desire only because we will it.  But the will is the child of desire, and passes out of the dominion of its parent only to come under the sway of habit.  What is the result of habit may not be intrinsically good; we might think it better for virtue that habit did not come in, were it not that the other influences are not sufficiently to be depended on for unerring constancy, until they have acquired this farther support.