It is truly a whimsical supposition that, if mankind were agreed
in considering utility to be the test of morality, they would remain
without any agreement as to what is useful, and would take no measures
for having their notions on the subject taught to the young, and
enforced by law and opinion. There is no difficulty in proving any
ethical standard whatever to work ill, if we suppose universal
idiocy to be conjoined with it; but on any hypothesis short of that,
mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the
effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have
thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude, and for
the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better. That
philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that
the received code of ethics is by no means of divine right; and that
mankind have still much to learn as to the effects of actions on the
general happiness, I admit, or rather, earnestly maintain. The
corollaries from the principle of utility, like the precepts of
every practical art, admit of indefinite improvement, and, in a
progressive state of the human mind, their improvement is
perpetually going on.

  But to consider the rules of morality as improvable, is one thing;
to pass over the intermediate generalisations entirely, and
endeavour to test each individual action directly by the first
principle, is another. It is a strange notion that the
acknowledgment of a first principle is inconsistent with the admission
of secondary ones. To inform a traveller respecting the place of
his. ultimate destination, is not to forbid the use of landmarks and
direction-posts on the way. The proposition that happiness is the
end and aim of morality, does not mean that no road ought to be laid
down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not be advised
to take one direction rather than another. Men really ought to leave
off talking a kind of nonsense on this subject, which they would
neither talk nor listen to on other matters of practical
concernment. Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded
on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical
Almanack. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready
calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life
with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong,
as well as on many of the far more difficult questions of wise and
foolish. And this, as long as foresight is a human quality, it is to
be presumed they will continue to do. Whatever we adopt as the
fundamental principle of morality, we require subordinate principles
to apply it by; the impossibility of doing without them, being
common to all systems, can afford no argument against any one in
particular; but gravely to argue as if no such secondary principles
could be had, and as if mankind had remained till now, and always must
remain, without drawing any general conclusions from the experience of
human life, is as high a pitch, I think, as absurdity has ever reached
in philosophical controversy.

  The remainder of the stock arguments against utilitarianism mostly
consist in laying to its charge the common infirmities of human
nature, and the general difficulties which embarrass conscientious
persons in shaping their course through life. We are told that a
utilitarian will be apt to make his own particular case an exception
to moral rules, and, when under temptation, will see a utility in
the breach of a rule, greater than he will see in its observance.
But is utility the only creed which is able to furnish us with excuses
for evil doing, and means of cheating our own conscience? They are
afforded in abundance by all doctrines which recognise as a fact in
morals the existence of conflicting considerations; which all
doctrines do, that have been believed by sane persons. It is not the
fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs,
that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require no exceptions,
and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either
always obligatory or always condemnable. There is no ethical creed
which does not temper the rigidity of its laws, by giving a certain
latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for
accommodation to peculiarities of circumstances; and under every
creed, at the opening thus made, self-deception and dishonest
casuistry get in. There exists no moral system under which there do
not arise unequivocal cases of conflicting obligation. These are the
real difficulties, the knotty points both in the theory of ethics, and
in the conscientious guidance of personal conduct. They are overcome
practically, with greater or with less success, according to the
intellect and virtue of the individual; but it can hardly be pretended
that any one will be the less qualified for dealing with them, from
possessing an ultimate standard to which conflicting rights and duties
can be referred. If utility is the ultimate source of moral
obligations, utility may be invoked to decide between them when
their demands are incompatible. Though the application of the standard
may be difficult, it is better than none at all: while in other
systems, the moral laws all claiming independent authority, there is
no common umpire entitled to interfere between them; their claims to
precedence one over another rest on little better than sophistry,
and unless determined, as they generally are, by the unacknowledged
influence of considerations of utility, afford a free scope for the
action of personal desires and partialities. We must remember that
only in these cases of conflict between secondary principles is it
requisite that first principles should be appealed to. There is no
case of moral obligation in which some secondary principle is not
involved; and if only one, there can seldom be any real doubt which
one it is, in the mind of any person by whom the principle itself is
recognised.

                            Chapter 3

        Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility.

  THE QUESTION is often asked, and properly so, in regard to any