utilitarian principle is valuable as a corrective of error, and shows to us
a side of ethics which is apt to be neglected. It may be admitted further
that right and utility are co-extensive, and that he who makes the
happiness of mankind his object has one of the highest and noblest motives
of human action. But utility is not the historical basis of morality; nor
the aspect in which moral and religious ideas commonly occur to the mind.
The greatest happiness of all is, as we believe, the far-off result of the
divine government of the universe. The greatest happiness of the
individual is certainly to be found in a life of virtue and goodness. But
we seem to be more assured of a law of right than we can be of a divine
purpose, that 'all mankind should be saved;' and we infer the one from the
other. And the greatest happiness of the individual may be the reverse of
the greatest happiness in the ordinary sense of the term, and may be
realised in a life of pain, or in a voluntary death. Further, the word
'happiness' has several ambiguities; it may mean either pleasure or an
ideal life, happiness subjective or objective, in this world or in another,
of ourselves only or of our neighbours and of all men everywhere. By the
modern founder of Utilitarianism the self-regarding and disinterested
motives of action are included under the same term, although they are
commonly opposed by us as benevolence and self-love. The word happiness
has not the definiteness or the sacredness of 'truth' and 'right'; it does
not equally appeal to our higher nature, and has not sunk into the
conscience of mankind. It is associated too much with the comforts and
conveniences of life; too little with 'the goods of the soul which we
desire for their own sake.' In a great trial, or danger, or temptation, or
in any great and heroic action, it is scarcely thought of. For these
reasons 'the greatest happiness' principle is not the true foundation of
ethics. But though not the first principle, it is the second, which is
like unto it, and is often of easier application. For the larger part of
human actions are neither right nor wrong, except in so far as they tend to