on those who do not possess the feelings it appeals to; but neither
will these persons be more obedient to any other moral principle
than to the utilitarian one. On them morality of any kind has no
hold but through the external sanctions. Meanwhile the feelings exist,
a fact in human nature, the reality of which, and the great power with
which they are capable of acting on those in whom they have been
duly cultivated, are proved by experience. No reason has ever been
shown why they may not be cultivated to as great intensity in
connection with the utilitarian, as with any other rule of morals.

  There is, I am aware, a disposition to believe that a person who
sees in moral obligation a transcendental fact, an objective reality
belonging to the province of "Things in themselves," is likely to be
more obedient to it than one who believes it to be entirely
subjective, having its seat in human consciousness only. But
whatever a person's opinion may be on this point of Ontology, the
force he is really urged by is his own subjective feeling, and is
exactly measured by its strength. No one's belief that duty is an
objective reality is stronger than the belief that God is so; yet
the belief in God, apart from the expectation of actual reward and
punishment, only operates on conduct through, and in proportion to,
the subjective religious feeling. The sanction, so far as it is
disinterested, is always in the mind itself; and the notion
therefore of the transcendental moralists must be, that this
sanction will not exist in the mind unless it is believed to have
its root out of the mind; and that if a person is able to say to
himself, This which is restraining me, and which is called my
conscience, is only a feeling in my own mind, he may possibly draw the
conclusion that when the feeling ceases the obligation ceases, and
that if he find the feeling inconvenient, he may disregard it, and
endeavour to get rid of it. But is this danger confined to the
utilitarian morality? Does the belief that moral obligation has its
seat outside the mind make the feeling of it too strong to be got
rid of? The fact is so far otherwise, that all moralists admit and
lament the ease with which, in the generality of minds, conscience can
be silenced or stifled. The question, Need I obey my conscience? is
quite as often put to themselves by persons who never heard of the
principle of utility, as by its adherents. Those whose conscientious
feelings are so weak as to allow of their asking this question, if
they answer it affirmatively, will not do so because they believe in
the transcendental theory, but because of the external sanctions.

  It is not necessary, for the present purpose, to decide whether
the feeling of duty is innate or implanted. Assuming it to be
innate, it is an open question to what objects it naturally attaches
itself; for the philosophic supporters of that theory are now agreed
that the intuitive perception is of principles of morality and not
of the details. If there be anything innate in the matter, I see no
reason why the feeling which is innate should not be that of regard to
the pleasures and pains of others. If there is any principle of morals
which is intuitively obligatory, I should say it must be that. If
so, the intuitive ethics would coincide with the utilitarian, and
there would be no further quarrel between them. Even as it is, the
intuitive moralists, though they believe that there are other
intuitive moral obligations, do already believe this to one; for
they unanimously hold that a large portion of morality turns upon
the consideration due to the interests of our fellow-creatures.
Therefore, if the belief in the transcendental origin of moral
obligation gives any additional efficacy to the internal sanction,
it appears to me that the utilitarian principle has already the
benefit of it.

  On the other hand, if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are
not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason the less
natural. It is natural to man to speak, to reason, to build cities, to
cultivate the ground, though these are acquired faculties. The moral
feelings are not indeed a part of our nature, in the sense of being in
any perceptible degree present in all of us; but this, unhappily, is a
fact admitted by those who believe the most strenuously in their
transcendental origin. Like the other acquired capacities above
referred to, the moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a
natural outgrowth from it; capable, like them, in a certain small
degree, of springing up spontaneously; and susceptible of being
brought by cultivation to a high degree of development. Unhappily it
is also susceptible, by a sufficient use of the external sanctions and
of the force of early impressions, of being cultivated in almost any
direction: so that there is hardly anything so absurd or so
mischievous that it may not, by means of these influences, be made
to act on the human mind with all the authority of conscience. To
doubt that the same potency might be given by the same means to the
principle of utility, even if it had no foundation in human nature,
would be flying in the face of all experience.

  But moral associations which are wholly of artificial creation, when
intellectual culture goes on, yield by degrees to the dissolving force
of analysis: and if the feeling of duty, when associated with utility,
would appear equally arbitrary; if there were no leading department of
our nature, no powerful class of sentiments, with which that
association would harmonise, which would make us feel it congenial,
and incline us not only to foster it in others (for which we have
abundant interested motives), but also to cherish it in ourselves;
if there were not, in short, a natural basis of sentiment for
utilitarian morality, it might well happen that this association also,
even after it had been implanted by education, might be analysed away.

  But there is this basis of powerful natural sentiment; and this it
is which, when once the general happiness is recognised as the ethical
standard, will constitute the strength of the utilitarian morality.
This firm foundation is that of the social feelings of mankind; the
desire to be in unity with our fellow creatures, which is already a