We may preface the criticism with a few preliminary remarks:--

Mr. Mill, Mr. Austin, and others, in their eagerness to maintain the
doctrine of utility, are fond of repeating that we are in a lamentable
state of uncertainty about morals. While other branches of knowledge have
made extraordinary progress, in moral philosophy we are supposed by them to
be no better than children, and with few exceptions--that is to say,
Bentham and his followers--to be no further advanced than men were in the
age of Socrates and Plato, who, in their turn, are deemed to be as backward
in ethics as they necessarily were in physics. But this, though often
asserted, is recanted almost in a breath by the same writers who speak thus
depreciatingly of our modern ethical philosophy. For they are the first to
acknowledge that we have not now to begin classifying actions under the
head of utility; they would not deny that about the general conceptions of
morals there is a practical agreement. There is no more doubt that
falsehood is wrong than that a stone falls to the ground, although the
first does not admit of the same ocular proof as the second. There is no
greater uncertainty about the duty of obedience to parents and to the law
of the land than about the properties of triangles. Unless we are looking
for a new moral world which has no marrying and giving in marriage, there
is no greater disagreement in theory about the right relations of the sexes
than about the composition of water. These and a few other simple
principles, as they have endless applications in practice, so also may be
developed in theory into counsels of perfection.

To what then is to be attributed this opinion which has been often
entertained about the uncertainty of morals? Chiefly to this,--that
philosophers have not always distinguished the theoretical and the
casuistical uncertainty of morals from the practical certainty. There is