[113] Hegel's Philosophy of Right, translated by Dyde, Part III., 258 (p. 241).
[114] Werke, Book I., 389.
[115] The Greek words ἡδονή, pleasure, and εὐδαιμονία, happiness. The latter conception is due chiefly to Aristotle. Happiness is, however, a good translation only when taken very vaguely. The Greek term has a peculiar origin which influenced its meaning.
[116] The differences as regards self and society will be considered in later chapters.
[117] For similar reasons, the "content" theories tend to ally themselves with the positive sciences; the "attitude" theories with philosophy as distinct from sciences.
[118] "Suppose that picking a man's pocket excited in him joyful emotions, by brightening his prospects, would theft be counted among crimes?"—Spencer.
[119] Mill in his Autobiography has given a striking account of how this phase of Utilitarianism appealed to him. (See pp. 65-67 of London edition of 1874; see also his Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. I., Essay on Bentham, especially pp. 339 and ff.) Bentham "introduced into morals and politics those habits of thought, and modes of investigation, which are essential to the idea of science; and the absence of which made these departments of inquiry, as physics had been before Bacon, a field of interminable discussion, leading to no result. It was not his opinions, in short, but his method, that constituted the novelty and value of what he did.... Bentham's method may be shortly described as the method of detail.... Error lurks in generalities."
Mill finally says: "He has thus, it is not too much to say, for the first time introduced precision of thought in moral and political philosophy. Instead of taking up their opinions by intuition, or by ratiocination from premises adopted on a mere rough view, and couched in language so vague that it is impossible to say exactly whether they are true or false, philosophers are now forced to understand one another, to break down the generality of their propositions, and join a precise issue in every dispute. This is nothing less than a revolution in philosophy." In view of the character of the larger amount of discussions in moral and political philosophy still current, Mill perhaps took a too optimistic view of the extent to which this "revolution" had been accomplished.