word pleasure precedes the word utility." Those who know anything
about the matter are aware that every writer, from Epicurus to
Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility, meant by it, not
something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure
itself, together with exemption from pain; and instead of opposing the
useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have always declared that
the useful means these, among other things. Yet the common herd,
including the herd of writers, not only in newspapers and periodicals,
but in books of weight and pretension, are perpetually falling into
this shallow mistake. Having caught up the word utilitarian, while
knowing nothing whatever about it but its sound, they habitually
express by it the rejection, or the neglect, of pleasure in some of
its forms; of beauty, of ornament, or of amusement. Nor is the term
thus ignorantly misapplied solely in disparagement, but occasionally
in compliment; as though it implied superiority to frivolity and the
mere pleasures of the moment. And this perverted use is the only one
in which the word is popularly known, and the one from which the new
generation are acquiring their sole notion of its meaning. Those who
introduced the word, but who had for many years discontinued it as a
distinctive appellation, may well feel themselves called upon to
resume it, if by doing so they can hope to contribute anything towards
rescuing it from this utter degradation.*

  * The author of this essay has reason for believing himself to be
the first person who brought the word utilitarian into use. He did not
invent it, but adopted it from a passing expression in Mr. Galt's
Annals of the Parish. After using it as a designation for several
years, he and others abandoned it from a growing dislike to anything
resembling a badge or watchword of sectarian distinction. But as a
name for one single opinion, not a set of opinions- to denote the
recognition of utility as a standard, not any particular way of
applying it- the term supplies a want in the language, and offers, in
many cases, a convenient mode of avoiding tiresome circumlocution.

  The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the
Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in
proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure,
and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of
pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the
theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it
includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is
left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not
affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is
grounded- namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only
things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are
as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable
either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the
promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

  Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them
in some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate
dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end
than pleasure- no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit-
they designate as utterly mean and grovelling; as a doctrine worthy
only of swine, to whom the followers of Epicurus were, at a very early
period, contemptuously likened; and modern holders of the doctrine are
occasionally made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its
German, French, and English assailants.

  When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it
is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a
degrading light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be
capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If
this supposition were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but
would then be no longer an imputation; for if the sources of
pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the
rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for
the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is
felt as degrading, precisely because a beast's pleasures do not
satisfy a human being's conceptions of happiness. Human beings have
faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once
made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does
not include their gratification. I do not, indeed, consider the
Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their
scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle. To do this in
any sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements
require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life
which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the
feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher
value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must be
admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the
superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater
permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the former- that is, in
their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature.
And on all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case; but
they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher
ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the
principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of
pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be
absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is
considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should
be supposed to depend on quantity alone.

  If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or
what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a
pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one
possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or
almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference,
irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that