as having outside causes, which the very word "impression" irresistibly suggests. And at the
moments when Hume achieves some degree of consistency he is wildly paradoxical.
No one has yet succeeded in inventing a philosophy at once credible and self-consistent. Locke
aimed at credibility, and achieved it at the expense of consistency. Most of the great
philosophers have done the opposite. A philosophy which is not self-consistent cannot be
wholly true, but a philosophy which is self-consistent can very well be wholly false. The most
fruitful philosophies have contained glaring inconsistencies, but for that very reason have been
partially true. There is no reason to suppose that a self-consistent system contains more truth
than one which, like Locke's, is obviously more or less wrong.
Locke's ethical doctrines are interesting, partly on their own account, partly as an anticipation of
Bentham. When I speak of his ethical doctrines, I do not mean his moral disposition as a
practical man, but his general theories as to how men act and how they should act. Like
Bentham, Locke was a man filled with kindly feeling, who yet held that everybody (including
himself) must always be moved, in action, solely by desire for his own happiness or pleasure. A
few quotations will make this clear.
"Things are good or evil only in relation to pleasure or pain. That we call 'good' which is apt to
cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain, in us."
"What is it moves desire? I answer, happiness, and that alone."
"Happiness, in its full extent, is the utmost pleasure we are capable of."
"The necessity of pursuing true happiness [is] the foundation of all liberty."
"The preference of vice to virtue [is] a manifest wrong judgement."
"The government of our passions [is] the right improvement of liberty." *
The last of these statements depends, it would seem, upon the doctrine of rewards and
punishments in the next world. God has laid down certain moral rules; those who follow them
go to heaven, and
* The above quotations are from Book II, Ch. XX.