He could not live on happily as a conscious liar. The nobility of a
man's character is tested by the things which give him pleasure. The
joy in following truth, in striving after the noblest he can see--that
is the greatest happiness; to sacrifice present enjoyment for the
service of others is not self-denial, but self-expression, to the Spirit
who is man.
Where Utility fails is that it does not inspire, save where the
spiritual life is already seen to be the highest happiness of the
individual, because it conduces to the good of all, not only of the
"greatest number". Men who thus feel have inspiration from within
themselves and need no outside moral code, no compelling external law.
Ordinary men, the huge majority at the present stage of evolution, need
either compulsion or inspiration, otherwise they will not control their
animal nature, they will not sacrifice an immediate pleasure to a
permanent increase of happiness, they will not sacrifice personal gain
to the common good. The least developed of these are almost entirely
influenced by fear of personal pain and wish for personal pleasure; they
will not put their hand into the fire, because they know that fire
burns, and no one accuses them of a "low motive" because they do not
burn themselves; religion shows them that the results of the disregard
of moral and mental law work out in suffering after death as well as
before it, and that the results of obedience to such laws similarly work
out in post-mortem pleasure.
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