It would appear, then, that if I am to justify those types of action which are regarded as more completely moral, I must persuade you to adopt interests that at any given instant do not move you. I must persuade you to forego your present inclination for the sake of another; to judge between interests, and prefer that which on grounds that you cannot reasonably deny is the more valid. In other words, I must define a logical transition from prudence to preference, or moral purpose.

Let us suppose that, in spite of your liking, apples do not "agree with" you. It is, for example, pertinent to remark that if you eat the apple to-day you cannot go to the play to-morrow. Our parley proceeds as follows:

"Just now I am eating apples. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

"But you acknowledge your fondness for the theatre."

"Yes, but that doesn't interest me now."

"Nevertheless you recognize the interest in {51} play-going as a real one, dormant to-day, temporarily eclipsed by another interest, but certain to revive to-morrow?"

"I do."

"And you admit that, apart from the chance of your death in the meantime, a chance so small as to be negligible, an interest to-morrow is as real as an interest to-day?"

"Yes."

"Now, recognizing these two interests, and keeping them firmly in view, observe the consequences of your action if you persist in eating the apple, and pronounce judgment upon it."

"It would seem to be both good and bad; good in its conduciveness to the satisfaction of my present appetite, bad in its preventing my enjoyment of the play."

In your last reply you have fairly stated the problem. You are not permitted to escape the dilemma by simply neglecting the facts, for this would be contrary to the original agreement binding you to be and remain open-minded. And you are now as concerned as I to solve the problem by defining a reorganization of the situation that would permit of an action unequivocally good, that is altogether conducive to the fulfilment of interest.

To understand what would constitute a solution of this moral problem it is important to observe, {52} in the first place, that an action wholly conducive to both interests would take precedence of an action which fulfilled the one but sacrificed the other. Were it possible for you to eat the apple now and go to the play to-morrow, your rational course would be to allow your present impulse free play. You would thus be alive to the total situation; your action would in reality be regulated by both interests, or rather by a larger interest embracing and providing for both. An action thus controlled would have a more adequate justification than an action conceived with reference to the one interest exclusively, and merely happening to be favorable to the other interest also. Or suppose that, by substituting a different species of apple for the one first selected, you could avoid disagreeable consequences, and without loss of immediate gratification. In this case you would have corrected your original action and adopted a course that proved itself better, because conducive to the fulfilment of to-morrow's interest as well as to-day's.

We have thus arrived at a very important conception, that of a higher interest possessing a certain priority in its claims. The higher interest as I have defined it is simply the greater interest, and greater in the sense that it exceeds a narrower interest through embracing it and adding to it. Your interest in the fulfilment of {53} to-day's interest and to-morrow's, is demonstrably greater than your interest in the fulfilment of either exclusively, because it provides for each and more. In this perfectly definite sense your preference may be justified.

Let us now apply this principle of preference to the more complex case in which there is no available action which will fulfil both interests. Suppose that you cannot both eat apples to-day and go to the play to-morrow. How is one to define a good action in the premises? In the first place the good act originally conceived in terms of the free play of the present impulse is proved to be illusory. There is no good act until your interests are reorganized. In other words, the higher interest, which is entitled to preference, requires some modification of the participating interests. But the higher interest owes its title to its liberality or comprehensiveness. Hence it must represent the maximum fulfilment of both interests which the conditions allow. Such a controlling interest may require you altogether to forego the present indulgence, or it may merely require that it be severely limited. In any case, the controlling interest will represent both interests, modified, postponed, or suppressed, as is necessary for their maximum joint fulfilment. The higher interest which thus replaces the original interest, and which is entitled to do so only {54} because it incorporates them, I propose to call moral purpose.

There are two highly important principles which we have been brought to recognize through this analysis of preference, and it will be worth our while briefly to resume them.

In the first place, no interest is entitled to your exclusive regard merely because it happens at any given time to be moving you. I shall call this the principle of the objective validity of interests. I mean simply that an interest is none the less an interest because it does not coincide with an individual's momentary inclination. In reminding you of an interest overlooked, I have not sought to justify it by subsuming it under your present interest. I have not tried to prove that it is to your interest as an epicure that you should go to the play. I have simply pointed out the other interest, and allowed it to stand on its merits. In ethical theories of a certain type, and in much impromptu moralizing, it is assumed that there is no legitimate appeal except in behalf of interests that are at the instant already alive. This is as absurd as to suppose that in order to bring you to the truth in any purely theoretical matter, I must confine myself to evidence that you already recognize. In both cases your individual experience at any given time may be narrow and limited owing to causes that are in the highest {55} degree arbitrary. It may be advisable that I should solicit your attention by connecting what I have to offer with what is already familiar to you; but this is a psychological expedient. My appeal is logically supported by objects, by principles, by data which are in no wise dependent for their claims on their connection with your present stock in trade.

Chesterton refers to one who "had that rational and deliberate preference which will always to the end trouble the peace of the world, the rational and deliberate preference for a short life and a merry one." [7] I cannot regard such hedonistic opportunism as other than wantonness or wilful carelessness. It may be deliberate in the sense of being consciously persisted in, but I cannot find any rationality in it. It arises naturally enough through the greater vividness of the interests that are already adopted and proved; but all prejudices arise from such accidents, and they are none the less on that account absolutely antagonistic to the rational attitude-that willingness that things should be for me even as they are.

In the second place, it has appeared that there is no demonstrable priority of one simple interest over another differing only qualitatively from it. I propose to call this the principle of the quantitative basis of preference. I know that the term quantity has an ugly sound in this context. {56} But I believe that this is due simply to a false abstraction. Two good books are not better than one because two is better than one, but because in two of a given unit of goodness there is more of goodness than in one. Two is more than one, but not more good, unless that which is counted is itself good. Nor is two longer or heavier than one, unless the units numbered happen to be those of length or weight. To prefer two interests to one does not imply that one is a lover of quantity, but a lover of good; of that which if it be and remain good, the more the better.

At any rate it seems to me a matter of simple candor to admit that "more" is a term implying quantity, whether it be "more room," "more weight," "more goodness," or "more beauty." It seems to me to be equally evident that "more" implies commensurable magnitude; and that commensurability implies the existence of a common unit in the terms compared. Two inches are more than one inch in that they include one inch and also another like unit. Now in moral matters the unit of value is the fulfilment of the simple interest; and in consequence I see no way of demonstrating that one such simple interest is more good than another, as I see no way of demonstrating that one inch is longer than another. But I do see that if I can carry a simple interest over into a compound one, and there both {57} retain it and add to it, I shall have more-more by what I add. Such comparison is never a simple matter, perhaps in any concrete case never wholly conclusive. But I can conceive no more important and more clarifying declaration of principle. It means that any rational decision as to the precedence of social ideals, or as to historical progress from good to better, must be based on width of representation and weight of incentive.