those who break them risk going to hell. The prudent pleasure-seeker will therefore be virtuous.
With the decay of the belief that sin leads to hell, it has become more difficult to make a purely
self-regarding argument in favour of a virtuous life. Bentham, who was a freethinker, substituted
the human lawgiver in place of God: it was the business of laws and social institutions to make a
harmony between public and private interests, so that each man, in pursuing his own happiness,
should be compelled to minister to the general happiness. But this is less satisfactory than the
reconciliation of public and private interests effected by means of heaven and hell, both because
lawgivers are not always wise or virtuous, and because human governments are not omniscient.
Locke has to admit, what is obvious, that men do not always act in the way which, on a rational
calculation, is likely to secure them a maximum of pleasure. We value present pleasure more than
future pleasure, and pleasure in the near future more than pleasure in the distant future. It may be
said--this is not said by Locke--that the rate of interest is a quantitative measure of the general
discounting of future pleasures. If the prospect of spending $1000 a year hence were as delightful
as the thought of spending it today, I should not need to be paid for postponing my pleasure.
Locke admits that devout believers often commit sins which, by their own creed, put them in
danger of hell. We all know people who put off going to the dentist longer than they would if they
were engaged in the rational pursuit of pleasure. Thus, even if pleasure or the avoidance of pain be
our motive, it must be added that pleasures lose their attractiveness and pains their terrors in
proportion to their distance in the future.
Since it is only in the long run that, according to Locke, self-interest and the general interest
coincide, it becomes important that men should be guided, as far as possible, by their long-run
interests. That is to say, men should be prudent. Prudence is the one virtue which remains to be
preached, for every lapse from virtue is a failure of prudence. Emphasis on prudence is
characteristic of liberalism. It is connected with the rise of capitalism, for the prudent became rich
while the imprudent became or remained poor. It is connected also with certain forms of
Protestant piety: virtue with a view to heaven is psychologically very analogous to saving with a
view to investment.
Belief in the harmony between private and public interests is