[10] Methods of Ethics, I. i. 3, p. 6.
[11] The difference between Aristotle and Kant in ethics is sometimes expressed (see Trendelenburg, Hist. Beiträge zur Phil., iii. 171 ff.) as if it consisted in the fact that the former investigated human nature in order to find its τέλος (~telos~), whereas the latter sought the standard of action in a transcendental ground. There is reason for this distinction in Kant's manner of statement. But both may be regarded as investigating human nature. Their difference rather consists in the different position and function assigned to reason in man. It is because Kant is for the moment looking upon reason as something distinct from human nature that he says that "the ground of obligation is to be sought, not in the nature of man or in the circumstances in the world in which he is placed, but à priori simply in the notions of pure reason" (Werke, iv. 237). His "metaphysical" view of ethics, however, follows from the rational constitution of the human subject and his experience, and does not depend on any source that really "transcends" the reason of man.
[12] Opinion is also divided according to the place assigned to reason in the world,—this principle of division corresponding almost exactly with the former.
[13] Thus it is the object of Helvétius's first discours "De l'esprit" to prove that physical sensibility and memory are the only productive causes of our ideas.
[14] Comte, by connecting ethics with biology; Darwin and Spencer, by the doctrine of evolution.
[15] Meaning by "greatest pleasure," greatest balance of pleasure over pain, and thus inclusive of the meaning "least pain." It is the expression in terms of feeling of the statement sometimes preferred, that "action follows the line of least resistance"—a statement to which no exception can be taken, nor any importance allowed, till it be translated into definite psychological language.
[16] "Ainsi lorsque nous disons que l'intérêt est l'unique mobile des actions humaines, nous voulons indiquer par là que chaque homme travaille à sa manière à son propre bonheur, qu'il place dans quelqu'objet soit visible, soit caché, soit réel, soit imaginaire, et que tout le système de sa conduite tend à l'obtenir."—Système de la nature (1781), i. 268.
[17] "On the occasion of every act he exercises, every human being is led to pursue that line of conduct which, according to his view of the case taken by him at the moment, will be in the highest degree contributory to his own greatest happiness."—Constitutional Code, book i. § 2; Works, ix. 5. The continued existence of the species is, Bentham thinks, a conclusive proof of this proposition.
[18] Thus, according to James Mill, "the terms 'idea of pleasure' and 'desire' are but two names; the thing named, the state of consciousness is one and the same. The word Desire is commonly used to mark the idea of a pleasurable sensation when the future is associated with it."—Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, J. S. Mill's edit., ii. 192; cf. Fragment on Mackintosh (1835), p. 389 f. To the same effect J. S. Mill says: "Desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon; in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact."—Utilitarianism, 7th ed., p. 58.
[19] "Will is the child of desire, and passes out of the dominion of its parent only to come under that of habit."—Utilitarianism, p. 60.