A standard of judgment is different from a motive
the test of happiness is a test and the other isn't.
The contrast concerns what makes an act worth choosing, rather than what makes someone act. Any deliberate act expresses a will; that shared feature cannot distinguish a rescue from a betrayal. Happiness can at least supply a disputed criterion for comparing them. Chesterton is defending the need for a standard, without committing himself to utilitarianism as the correct standard.
Mill makes a relevant distinction in Utilitarianism (first serialized 1861; first book edition 1863; inspected here in the seventh edition, 1879). In chapter II he separates an action's morality from the agent's motive, illustrating this with someone who saves a drowning person for payment. In chapter IV he allows that habitual virtuous willing can persist independently of immediate pleasure, while denying that its independence makes it intrinsically good. This supports Chesterton's separation of willing from justification. It also qualifies his cliff example: a utilitarian asks about an act's tendency to promote happiness, not simply whether the actor intended personal happiness. Mill, chapters II and IV.
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