every conceivable utility. It is principally reserved, when not abused, for a select class of utilities.

Some utilities are indispensable to the very existence of men in society. The primary moral duties must be observed to some degree, if men are to live together as men, and not to roam at large as beasts. The interests of Security are the first and most pressing concern of human society. Whatever relates to this has a surpassing importance. Security is contrasted with Improvement; what relates to Security is declared to be Right; what relates to Improvement is said to be Expedient; both are forms of Utility, but the one is pressing and indispensable, the other is optional. The same difference is expressed by the contrasts-Being and Well-being; Existence and Prosperous Existence; Fundamentals or Essentials and Circumstantials. That the highway robber should be punished is a part of Being; that the highways should be in good repair, is a part of Well-being. That Justice should be done is Existence; that farmers and traders should give in to government the statistics of their occupation, is a means to Prosperous Existence.*

It is proper to advert to one specific influence in moral enactments, serving to disguise the Ethical end, and to widen the distinction between morality as it has been, and morality as it ought to be. The enforcing of legal and moral enactments demands a power of coercion, to be lodged in the hands of certain persons; the possession of which is a temptation to exceed the strict exigencies of public safety, or the common welfare. Probably many of the whims, fancies, ceremonies, likings and antipathies, that have found their way into the moral codes of nations, have arisen from the arbitrary disposition of certain individuals happening to be in authority at particular junctures. Even the general community, acting in a spontaneous manner, imposes needless restraints upon itself, delighting more in the exercise of power, than in the freedom of individual action.

* The conditions that regulate the authoritative enforcement of actions, are exhaustively given in works on Jurisprudence, but they do not all concern Ethical Theory. The expedience of imposing a rule depends on the importance of the object compared with the cost of the machinery. A certain line of conduct may be highly beneficial, but may not be a fit case for coercion. For example, the law can enforce only a minimum of service: now, if the case be such that a minimum is useless, as in helping a ship in distress, or in supporting aged parents, it is much better to leave the case to voluntary impulses, seconded by approbation or reward. Again, an offence punished by law must be, in its nature, definable; which makes a difficulty in such cases as insult, and defamation, and many species of fraud. Farther, the offence must be easy of detection, so that the vast majority of offenders may not escape. This limits the action of the law in unchastity.

7. Morality, in its essential parts, is 'Eternal and Immutable;' in other parts, it varies with Custom.

(1) The rules for protecting one man from another, for enforcing justice, and the observance of contracts, are essential and fundamental, and may be styled 'Eternal and Immutable.' The ends to be served require these rules; no caprice of custom could change them without sacrificing those ends. They are to society what food is to individual life, of sexual intercourse and mother's care to the continuance of the race. The primary moralities could not be exchanged for rules enacting murder, pillage, injustice, unveracity, repudiation of engagements; because under these rules, human society would fall to pieces.

(2) The manner of carrying into effect these primary regulations of society, varies according to Custom. In some communities the machinery is rude and imperfect; while others have greatly improved it. The Greeks took the lead in advancing judicial machinery, the Romans followed.

But

In the regulations not essential to Being, but important to Well-being, there has prevailed the widest discrepancy of usage. The single department relating to the Sexes is a sufficient testimony on this head. No one form of the family is indispensable to the existence of society; yet some forms are more favourable to general happiness than others. •which form is on the whole the best, has greatly divided opinion; and legislation has varied accordingly. The more advanced nations have adopted compulsory monogamy, thereby giving the prestige of their authority in favour of that system.. But it cannot be affirmed that the joining of one man to one woman is a portion of 'Eternal and Immutable Morality.'

Morality is an Institution of society, but not an arbitrary institution.

8. Before adducing the proofs in support of the position above assumed, namely, that Utility or Human Happiness, with certain limitations, is the proper criterion of Morality, it is proper to enquire, what sort of evidence the Ethical Standard is susceptible of.

Hitherto, the doctrine of Utility has been assumed, in order to be fully stated. We must next review the evidence in its favour, and the objections urged against it. It is desirable, however, to ask what kind of proof should be expected on such a question.

WHAT IS THE PROOF OF THE STANDARD ?

27

In the Speculative or Theoretical sciences, we prove a doctrine by referring it to some other doctrine or doctrines, until we come at last to some assumption that must be rested in as ultimate or final. We can prove the propositions of Euclid, the law of gravitation, the law of atomic proportions, the law of association; we cannot prove our present sensations, nor can we demonstrate that what has been, will be. The ultimate data must be accepted as self-evident; ) they have no higher authority than that mankind generally are disposed to accept them.

In the practical Sciences, the question is not as to a principle of the order of nature, but as to an end of human action. There may be derived Ends, which are susceptible of demonstrative proof; but there must also be ultimate Ends, for which no proof can be offered; they must be received as self-evident, and their sole authority is the person receiving them. In most of the practical sciences, the ends are derived; the end of Medicine is Health, which is an end subsidiary to the final end of human happiness. So it is with Navigation, with Politics, with Education, and others. In all of them, we recognize the bearing upon human welfare, or happiness, as a common, comprehensive, and crowning end. On the theory of Utility, Morals is also governed by this highest end.

Now, there can be no proof offered for the position that Happiness is the proper end of all human pursuit, the criterion of all right conduct. It is an ultimate or final assumption, to be tested by reference to the individual judgment of mankind. If the assumption, that misery, and not happiness, is the proper end of life, found supporters, no one could reply, for want of a basis of argument-an assumption still more fundamental agreed upon by both sides. It would probably be the case, that the supporters of misery, as an end, would be at some point inconsistent with themselves; which would lay them open to refutation. But to any one consistently maintaining the position, there is no possible reply, because there is no medium of proof.

If then, it appears, on making the appeal to mankind, that happiness is admitted to be the highest end of all action, the theory of Utility is proved.

9. The judgment of Mankind is very generally in favour of Happiness, as the supreme end of human conduct, Morality included.

This decision, however, is not given without qualifica

tions and reservations; nor is there perfect unanimity regarding it.

The theory of Motives to the Will is the answer to the question as to the ends of human action. According to the primary law of the Will, each one of us, for ourselves, seeks pleasure and avoids pain, present or prospective. The principle is interfered with by the operation of Fixed Ideas, under the influence of the feelings; whence we have the class of Impassioned, Exaggerated, Irrational Motives or Ends. Of these influences, one deserves to be signalized as a source of virtuous conduct, and as approved of by mankind generally; that is, Sympathy with others.

Under the Fixed Idea, may be ranked the acquired sense of Dignity, which induces us often to forfeit pleasure and incur pain. We should not choose the life of Plato's beatified oyster, or (to use Aristotle's example) be content with perpetual childhood, with however great a share of childish happiness.

10. The Ethical end that men are tending to, and may ultimately adopt without reservation, is human Welfare, Happiness, or Being and Well-being combined, that is, Utility.

The evidence consists of such facts as these:

(1) By far the greater part of the morality of every age and country has reference to the welfare of society. Even in the most superstitious, sentimental, and capricious despotisms, a very large share of the enactments, political and moral, consist in protecting one man from another, and in securing justice between man and man. These objects may be badly carried out, they may be accompanied with much oppression of the governed by the governing body, but they are always aimed at, and occasionally secured. Of the Ten Commandments, four pertain to Religious Worship; six are Utilitarian, that is, have no end except to ward off evils, and to further the good of mankind.

(2) The general welfare is at all times considered a strong and adequate justification of moral rules, and is constantly adduced as a motive for obedience. The commonplaces in support of law and morality represent, that if murder and theft were to go unpunished, neither life nor property would be safe; men would be in eternal warfare; industry would perish; society must soon come to an end.

There is a strong disposition to support the more purely

HAPPINESS THE ADMITTED ETHICAL END.

29

sentimental requirements, and even the excesses of mere tyranny, by utilitarian reasons.

The cumbersome ablutions of oriental nations are defended on the ground of cleanliness. The divine sanctity of kings is held to be an aid to social obedience. Slavery is alleged to have been at one time necessary to break in mankind to industry. Indissoluble marriage arose from a sentiment rather than from utility; but the arguments, commonly urged in its favour, are utilitarian.

In

(3) In new cases, and in cases where no sentiment or passion is called into play, Utility alone is appealed to. any fresh enactment, at the present day, the good of the community is the only justification that would be listened to. If it were proposed to forbid absolutely the eating of pork in Christian countries, some great public evils would have to be assigned as the motive. Were the fatalities attending the eating of pork, on account of trichinia, to become numerous, and unpreventible, there would then be a reason, such as a modern civilized community would consider sufficient, for making the rearing of swine a crime and an immorality. But no mere sentimental or capricious dislike to the pig, on tho part of any number of persons, could now procure an enactment for disusing that animal.

(4) There is a gradual tendency to withdraw from the moral code, observances originating purely in sentiment, and having little or no connexion with human welfare.

We have abandoned the divine sacredness of kings. We no longer consider ourselves morally bound to denounce and extirpate heretics and witches, still less to observe fasts and sacred days. Even in regard to the Christian Sabbath, the opinion is growing in favour of withdrawing both the legal and popular sanction formerly so stringent; while the arguments for Sabbath observance are more and more charged with considerations of secular utility.

Should these considerations be held as adequate to support the proposition advanced, they are decisive in favour of Utility as the Moral Standard that ought to be. Any other standard that may be set up in competition with Utility, must ultimately ground itself on the very same appeal to the opinions and the practice of mankind.

11. The chief objections urged against Utility as the moral Standard have been in great part anticipated. Still, it is proper to advert to them in detail.