All writers who have any practical and permanent contribution to make to the guidance of human conduct, perceive and proclaim some aspect or other of the philosophy of utility. They may not explicitly recognize happiness as the end of life,–indeed they may explicitly repudiate it,–but their instinct enables them to identify means, even if the end eludes them.
James MacKaye, Thoreau: Philosopher of Freedom, New York, 1930, p. ix
Quantities of pain or pleasure may be regarded as magnitudes having the same definiteness as tons of pig iron, barrels of sugar, bushels of wheat, yards of cotton, or pounds of wool; and as political economy seeks to ascertain the conditions under which these commodities may be produced with the greatest efficiency–so the economy of happiness seeks to ascertain the conditions under which happiness, regarded as a commodity, may be produced with the greatest efficiency.
James MacKaye, The Economy of Happiness, Boston, 1906, p. 183-184
[I]n the end the surest means of advancing the utilitarian cause, will be to advance that of humanity, since it is by the intelligent acts of man alone, if by any means, that right may be made to reign throughout the sentient world.
James MacKaye, The Economy of Happiness, Boston, 1906, p. 188