though, as we shall see in another moment, there is some plausibility in
this, there is really nothing in it of the special answer we want. Our
question is, What is the true happiness? And what is the answer thus
far?--That the true happiness is general happiness; that it is the
happiness of men in societies; that it is happiness equally distributed.
But this avails us nothing. The coveted _happiness_ is still a locked
casket. We know nothing as yet of its contents. A happy society neither
does nor can mean anything but a number of happy individuals, so
organised that their individual happiness is secured to them. But what
do the individuals want? Before we can try to secure it for them, we
must know that. Granted that we know what will make the individuals
happy, then we shall know what will make society happy. And then social
morality will be, as Professor Huxley says, a perfectly legitimate
subject of scientific enquiry--then, but not till then. But this is what
the positive school are perpetually losing sight of; and the reason of
the confusion is not far to seek.

Within certain limits, it is quite true, the general good is a
sufficiently obvious matter, and beyond the reach of any rational
dispute. There are, therefore, certain rules with regard to conduct
that we can arrive at and justify by strictly scientific methods. We can
demonstrate that there are certain actions which we must never tolerate,
and which we must join together, as best we may, to suppress. Actions,
for instance, that would tend to generate pestilence, or to destroy our
good faith in our fellows, or to render our lives and property insecure,
are actions the badness of which can be scientifically verified.

But the _general good_ by which these actions are tested is something
quite distinct from happiness, though it undoubtedly has a close
connection with it. It is no kind of happiness, high or low, in