supposed moral standard- What is its sanction? what are the motives
to obey it? or more specifically, what is the source of its
obligation? whence does it derive its binding force? It is a necessary
part of moral philosophy to provide the answer to this question;
which, though frequently assuming the shape of an objection to the
utilitarian morality, as if it had some special applicability to
that above others, really arises in regard to all standards. It
arises, in fact, whenever a person is called on to adopt a standard,
or refer morality to any basis on which he has not been accustomed
to rest it. For the customary morality, that which education and
opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the
mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory; and when a person
is asked to believe that this morality derives its obligation from
some general principle round which custom has not thrown the same
halo, the assertion is to him a paradox; the supposed corollaries seem
to have a more binding force than the original theorem; the
superstructure seems to stand better without, than with, what is
represented as its foundation. He says to himself, I feel that I am
bound not to rob or murder, betray or deceive; but why am I bound to
promote the general happiness? If my own happiness lies in something
else, why may I not give that the preference?

  If the view adopted by the utilitarian philosophy of the nature of
the moral sense be correct, this difficulty will always present
itself, until the influences which form moral character have taken the
same hold of the principle which they have taken of some of the
consequences- until, by the improvement of education, the feeling of
unity with our fellow-creatures shall be (what it cannot be denied
that Christ intended it to be) as deeply rooted in our character,
and to our own consciousness as completely a part of our nature, as
the horror of crime is in an ordinarily well brought up young
person. In the meantime, however, the difficulty has no peculiar
application to the doctrine of utility, but is inherent in every
attempt to analyse morality and reduce it to principles; which, unless
the principle is already in men's minds invested with as much
sacredness as any of its applications, always seems to divest them
of a part of their sanctity.

  The principle of utility either has, or there is no reason why it
might not have, all the sanctions which belong to any other system
of morals. Those sanctions are either external or internal. Of the
external sanctions it is not necessary to speak at any length. They
are, the hope of favour and the fear of displeasure, from our fellow
creatures or from the Ruler of the Universe, along with whatever we
may have of sympathy or affection for them, or of love and awe of Him,
inclining us to do his will independently of selfish consequences.
There is evidently no reason why all these motives for observance
should not attach themselves to the utilitarian morality, as
completely and as powerfully as to any other. Indeed, those of them
which refer to our fellow creatures are sure to do so, in proportion
to the amount of general intelligence; for whether there be any
other ground of moral obligation than the general happiness or not,
men do desire happiness; and however imperfect may be their own
practice, they desire and commend all conduct in others towards
themselves, by which they think their happiness is promoted. With
regard to the religious motive, if men believe, as most profess to do,
in the goodness of God, those who think that conduciveness to the
general happiness is the essence, or even only the criterion of
good, must necessarily believe that it is also that which God
approves. The whole force therefore of external reward and punishment,
whether physical or moral, and whether proceeding from God or from our
fellow men, together with all that the capacities of human nature
admit of disinterested devotion to either, become available to enforce
the utilitarian morality, in proportion as that morality is
recognised; and the more powerfully, the more the appliances of
education and general cultivation are bent to the purpose.

  So far as to external sanctions. The internal sanction of duty,
whatever our standard of duty may be, is one and the same- a feeling
in our own mind; a pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation
of duty, which in properly cultivated moral natures rises, in the more
serious cases, into shrinking from it as an impossibility. This
feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure
idea of duty, and not with some particular form of it, or with any
of the merely accessory circumstances, is the essence of Conscience;
though in that complex phenomenon as it actually exists, the simple
fact is in general all encrusted over with collateral associations,
derived from sympathy, from love, and still more from fear; from all
the forms of religious feeling; from the recollections of childhood
and of all our past life; from self-esteem, desire of the esteem of
others, and occasionally even self-abasement. This extreme
complication is, I apprehend, the origin of the sort of mystical
character which, by a tendency of the human mind of which there are
many other examples, is apt to be attributed to the idea of moral
obligation, and which leads people to believe that the idea cannot
possibly attach itself to any other objects than those which, by a
supposed mysterious law, are found in our present experience to excite
it. Its binding force, however, consists in the existence of a mass of
feeling which must be broken through in order to do what violates
our standard of right, and which, if we do nevertheless violate that
standard, will probably have to be encountered afterwards in the
form of remorse. Whatever theory we have of the nature or origin of
conscience, this is what essentially constitutes it.

  The ultimate sanction, therefore, of all morality (external
motives apart) being a subjective feeling in our own minds, I see
nothing embarrassing to those whose standard is utility, in the
question, what is the sanction of that particular standard? We may
answer, the same as of all other moral standards- the conscientious
feelings of mankind. Undoubtedly this sanction has no binding efficacy