Secondly, we are to choose the actions in question because they will make us happy.
But the very name we give the miser shows that the analogous choice in his case makes him miserable.

Thirdly, the material miser is an exceptional character; there is no known means by which it can be made more common; and with the moral miser the case will be just the same.
Lastly, if such a character be barely producible even in the present state of the world, much less will it be producible when human capacities shall have been curtailed by positivism, when the pleasures that the gold of virtue represents are less intense than at present, and the value of the coveted coin is indefinitely depreciated.
Much more might be added to the same purpose, but enough has been said already to make these two points clear:--firstly, that the positive system, if it is to do any practical work in the world, requires that the whole human character shall be profoundly altered; and secondly, that the required alteration is one that may indeed be dreamt about, but which can never possibly be made.

Even were it made, the results would not be splendid; but no matter how splendid they might be, this is of no possible moment to us.

There are few things on which it is idler to speculate than the issues of impossible contingencies.

And the positivists would be talking just as much to the purpose as they do now, were they to tell us how fast we should travel supposing we had wings, or what deep water we could wade through if we were twenty-four feet high.