THIS "O-P B<X>K" Is AN AUTHORIZED RK PRINT OF THK
ORIGINAL EDITION, PRODUCED BY iMicROFiLM-XEROGRAPHv BY
UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS, INC., ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, 196-1

DEONTOLOGY;

OK,

THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY:

IN WHICH THE HARMONY AND CO-INCIDENCE OF

DUTY AND SELF-INTEREST,

VIRTUE AND FELICITY,
PRUDENCE AND BENEVOLENCE,

ARE EXPLAINED AND EXEMPLIFIED.

J
FROM THE MSS. OF JEREMY ^ENTRAM,

""" ' — •-• > ^
ARRANGED AND EDITED BY

JOHN BOWRING.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWNE, GREEN, AND LONGMAN.

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM TAIT.

1834'

H-

i

9 2 s o v r;

CONTENTS.— PART I.

THEORY OF VIRTUE.

\

PAGE

PREFACE . . . . v to vi

INTRODUCTION . . .1 — 6

CHAPTER I.

eneral Statement . . .7 — 20

CHAPTER II.
Deontology Explained . . 21 -p 37

CHAPTER III.
Anti-Deontological Propositions removed—

Summum bonum . . .38 — 58

CHAPTER IV.
Pleasure and Pain — their relation to Good and

Evil . . . .59 — 77

CHAPTER V.
/ Well-Being and Ill-Being . . . 78 — 82

CHAPTER VI.
End of Action . . .83 — 86

CHAPTER VII.
Sanctions . . 87 — 121

CHAPTER VIII.
Causes of Immorality , . .122 — 131

CHAPTER IX.
Analysis of Confused Phraseology, by the

Deontological Test . 132—137

CHAPTER X.
Virtue Defined . 138 — 155

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XI. PAGE

Self-interest, or Self-regarding Prudence . 156 — 165

CHAPTER XII.

Prudence as regards others, or Extra-regarding

Prudence . . . 166 — 175

CHAPTER XIII.

Effective JBenevolence,— Negative . . 176—187

CHAPTER XIV.
Effective Benevolence,— Positive . .188 — 194

CHAPTER XV.
Analysis of Virtues and Vices . .195 — 222

CHAPTER XVI.

Tlume's Virtues . . . 223 — 258

CHAPTER XVII.
False Virtues . . . 259 — 262

CHAPTER XVIII.
The Passions . . . 263 — 270

CHAPTER XIX.

Intellectual Faculties . . .271—275

CHAPTER XX.

Conclusion of Theoretic Part . . 276 — 283

HISTORY OF THE GREATEST-HAPPINESS

PRINCIPLE . . 287 — 332

PREFACE.

THIS work was in the course of preparation for
the press when its great Author's earthly labors
were suddenly closed. He had, up to the latest
period of his existence, been accustomed to re
cord the desultory thoughts which occurred to
his mind on the important subject of which the
volume treats ; and I had the advantage, in my
intimate communion with him, of seeking such
guidance from him as was necessary for the
understanding and arrangement of the mass of
undigested fragments which he from time to time
placed in my hands. It was a happy and an
interesting task to follow him through those inves
tigations in which benevolence aricJ wisdom were
mutual handmaids, — and emphatic indeed was
the instruction which was so beautifully exem
plified in every thought, and word, and action of

Vlll PREFACE.

the Instructor. I took up my pen with alacrity
— I pursued my task with ever-new delight—
I end it with feelings of gloom, for which I can
find no adequate expression. The charm is
gone — the voice is silenced which conducted
and gladdened me on my way. These pages as
I turn them over seem to have the solemnity of
a sepulchral echo. I shall find a fitter occasion
for speaking of him who suggested them, who
* was himself the virtuous man he drew/ — and
I deliver them to the world, — my first offering
in discharge of those duties which have devolved
upon me as the legatee of those literary treasures
which he, my Friend and Master, has confided

to my keeping and to my care.

J. Bo.

INTRODUCTION.

IP it be assumed that virtue should be the rule,
and happiness the object of human action, he
who shows how the instrument may best be
applied to the production of the end, and how
the end may be accomplished in the greatest
obtainable degree, is undoubtedly engaged in
the exercise and entitled to the recompense of
virtue. /No small service will be done to man
kind, if moral laws can be discovered suited to all
the circumstances of life, — if the habitual power
can be communicated to the honest inquirer
of answering well and wisely that so often
embarrasing question, which occurs to every
one of us every day — every hour of our ex
istence, — How shall I act? and why? The
pages which I have the privilege of now intro
ducing to the world, are calculated, I trust, to
illumine the dark parts of the field of morals —

VOL. I. B

2 INTRODUCTION.

to unravel many entanglements, to solve many
doubts, — and to contribute much satisfaction to
the searchers after truth and virtue. The MSS.
were put into my hands without reservation or
restriction as to the manner of their publication.
The extreme indifference of their extraordinary
author to what is denominated literary fame,
stands out in prominent: contrast to that anxiety
which he has never hesitated to express, that
his opinions might go careering through the
world. He has always been rather desirous
of digging out and refining the ore than of
stamping it with his own ' image and super
scription.' Not that futurity will forget its
benefactor, or fail in honor due to him who
must and will exercise a mighty influence on its
condition. Of Bentham's writings, that may
fitly be said which Milton proclaimed of one of
his almost forgotten volumes, that it ' numbered
high intellects/ Our author's doctrines have
strongly moved the philosophic few, and their
course is rapidly opening and widening down
wards among the improving many. Scoffers
may have insulted him in his progress, but

INTRODUCTION. 3

where is the sage who has scorned, or who
having listened has been wanting in reverence
and gratitude to the man who first made
legislation a science ?

The course which Bentham has taken is to
employ such language as would convey his
ideas with the greatest precision to inquirers.
A vague phraseology is necessarily the parent
of vague ideas. In the minds of the well
disposed it is a source of confusion — in the
hands of the ill disposed, an instrument of
mischief. Right and wrong — justice and injus
tice, are terms susceptible of very different
interpretations. They may be used — they
have been used, according to the caprice or the
selfish interest of men for the production alike
of good and evil. When closely examined they
will generally be found nothing more than the
expression of the opinion more or less influential
of him who employs them ; and their value and
fit application will depend on their capacity to
stand the test of some other principle. The
language of common parlance must, before it
can be made use of for the communication of

4 INTRODUCTION.

correct ideas, be translated into the language of
happiness and unhappiness — of pleasures and of
pains. Into these elements all moral results
ultimately resolve themselves. Here is a point
beyond which there is no advancing. If there
be a greater good than happiness, let him who
has made the discovery produce it as a reward ;
if there be a greater evil than misery, let its
inventor employ it for the ends of punish
ment. In the dictionary of pain and pleasure,
our moralist has found all the machinery of his
craft.

Fiat experientia was the axiom of Bacon ;
an axiom which has been recognized as the
foundation of all genuime science. Fiat obser-
vatio, is Bentham's apophthegm. What experi
ment is to the philosopher, observation is to the
moralist. Bentham has examined human
actions through the pleasures and pains which
are consequent upon them, and has grounded all
his reasonings upon this examination. In such
pursuit truth can hardly have escaped him;
for truth and utility must go together hand in
hand ; and he who discovers what is useful »

INTRODUCTION. 5

cannot be far off from that which is true. It isf
in fact, more easy to overtake truth by pursuing
utility, than to reach truth at all without utility
for a guide ; since that which is useful is matter
of experience, while conjecture is busied in
asking, What is Truth?

To those who are acquainted with Bentham's
'Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation/ and who have pursued the train of
reasoning there broughtforward, the present work
may offer little that is new ; and perhaps there are
some who will think its con tents have been already
anticipated and its utility superseded by that
masterly monument of analytical and logical
power. But for universal acceptance the prin
ciples therein lafd down assume too much the
shape of axioms, and certainly wanted — as the
inconsiderable circulation of the volume has evi
denced — the attractions of popularity. \The pre
sent work, whose especial object it is to approve
itself to the general reader, is more desultory
and diffuse, and seeks to win its way by a
style less stern and severe. /The former was
written for the meditation of the profound thinker

6 INTRODUCTION.

—this looks to a wider and more popular, but
less elevated sphere of usefulness. Besides, the
1 Introduction * has a more extensive and am
bitious character, and is mainly occupied with
a developement of the true principles of Legis
lation, whose discussion, spite of its importance,
can have few fascinations for mankind at
large. In the volume before us it is not intended
to enter ,on the inquiries of jurisprudential
science. \Cur concern is with private morality,
and that has a claim to the attention of every
body, on every occasion in which thought,
word, or action is engaged.")

GENERAL STATEMENT.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL STATEMENT — ALLIANCE BETWEEN
INTEREST AND DUTY.

HE who in a deliberative assembly volunteers
to bring any motion forward, confers on himself
a distinction, in which his prominency cannot
but be contrasted with the equality of the rest ;
— so, he who in the republic of letters chooses
to range himself among the few who write, be
comes necessarily contradistinguished from the
many who read, and both speaker and writer
take upon themselves no inconsiderable respon
sibility. But, while in the case of a meeting for
discussion, every impropriety of the speaker has
the chance of immediate correction — in the case
of that fictitious and never assembled body
which creates the tribunal of public opinion, no
instant removal of error has place ; — secured for
the most part against contradiction, the public
writer is liable to assume a confidence unwar
ranted by his position. He has a motive to avoid
giving to his doctrines and precepts the support
of adequate reasons, the production of which
would interfere with his love of case, and the

8 DEONTOLOGY.

developement of which would demand an addi
tional exercise of intellectual effort. The public
legislator, with all his powers, is generally less
despotic in his phraseology than the public
writer — that self-constituted legislator of the
people. He makes laws without giving rea
sons, — laws which generally convey only his
sovereign will and pleasure. It is indeed a
misfortune that men come to the discussion of
important questions, predetermined to decide
them only in one way. They are pledged, as it
were, to their own minds, that certain practices
shall be wrong, and certain other practices right.
But the principle of. utility allows of no such
peremptoriness, and requires, before any prac
tice is condemned, that it be shown to be dero
gatory to human happiness. Such an investi
gation suits not the dogmatical instructor.
With the principle of utility", therefore, he will
have nothing to do. He will have a principle
of his own to do his own business. He will
convert his own opinion into a principle for its
own support. ' I say these things are not
right/ he proclaims with a sufficient portion of
positiveness — ergo, they are not right.

It is plain this setting up of an opinion as the
true foundation and sufficient reason for itself,
must put every imaginable extravagance upon an
equal footing with the most salutary persuasion ;

GENERAL STATEMENT. 9

nor does it offer any other or better standard of
right and wrong than the violence with which it
urges its pretensions, or the number of those
who agree in them. But if violence be the
standard, as there is no possible way of measuring
the intensity of conviction but by its visible in
fluence on actions, — the opinion of him who
knocks down his opponent is better grounded
than that of him who only asserts his opinion
vehemently, — of him who cuts his opponent's
throat than of him who only knocks him down,
— and of him who tortures before he destroys his
opponent than of either ; so that, in truth, the
opinions of the Inquisition bid fairest of any yet
known for being the very perfection of truth
and right reason, and morality may be gradu
ated according to the miseries inflicted by per
secution. If numbers decide, Idolatry would
drive Christianity from the field, — and truth
and morality would be in a state of everlasting
vibration between majorities -and minorities,
which are shifting with all the vicissitudes of
human events.

He who, on any other occasion, should say,
' It is as I say, because I say it is so/ would not
be thought to have said any great matter : but
on the question concerning the standard of mo
rality, men have written great books wherein

10 DEONTOLOOV,

from beginning to end they are employed in
saying this and nothing elsej What these
books have to depend on for their efficacy, and
for their being thought to have proved any thing
is, the stock of self-sufficiency in the writer,
and of implicit deference in the readers ; by
the help of a proper dose of which, one thing
may be made to go down as well as another.
Out of this assumption of authority has grown
the word obligation) from the Latin verb, obligo,
to bind, — while such a cloud of misty obscurity
has gathered round the term, that whole
volumes have been written to disperse it. The
obscurity, notwithstanding, has continued as
dense as before, and it can only be dissipated
.by bringing in. the light of Utility with its pains
and pleasures, and the sanctions and motives
which spring out of them.

It is, in fact, very idle to talk about duties ;
the word itself has in it something disagreeable
and repulsive ; and talk about it as we may, the
word will not become a rule of conduct. \ A
man, a moralist, gets into an elbow chair, and
pours forth pompous dogmatisms about duty —
and duties. Why is he not listened to ? Be-
s cause every man is thinking about interests^ It
is a part of his very nature to think first about
interests ; and with these the well-judging mo-

GENERAL STATEMENT. 11

ralist will find it for his interest to begin. /Let —
him say what he pleases, — to interest, duty
must;and will ,be made subservient.,/

To place prominently forward the connection
between interest and duty in all the concerns of
private life, is the object now proposed. The
more closely the subject is examined, the more
obvious will the agreement between interest
and duty appear. All laws which have for
their end the happiness of those concerned,
endeavour to make that for a man's interest
which they proclaim to be his duty. And in
the moral field it cannot be a man's duty lo
do that which it is his interest not to do./*
Morality will teach him rightly to estimate his
interests and his duties ; and examination will ^
show their co-incidence. That a man ought to
sacrifice his interest to his duty is a very com
mon position, — that such or such a man has
sacrificed his interest to his duty is a frequent
assertion, and made the ground-work of admi
ration. But when interest and duty are consi
dered in their broadest sense, it will be seen
that in the general tenor of life the sacrifice of §
interest to duty is neither practicable nor so
much as desirable % that it cannot, in fact, have
place ; and that if it could, the happiness of
mankind would not be promoted by it. I It has
been almost invariably the usage in treating of

12 DEONTOLOGY.

morals to speak of a man's duty — and nothing
more. Now, though it can scarcely be said with
truth that what is not a man's obvious interest
is not his duty, it may be safely pronounced^
i unlessitcan be shown that a particular action
"or course of conduct is for a man's interest, the
attempt to prove to him that it is his duty, will
be but a waste of words. Yet with such
waste of words has the field of Ethics been
hitherto filled. ' It is your duty to do this — it
is your duty to abstain from doing that;' and
this is easy travelling for a public instructor.
* ' But why is it my duty?' And the answer if
sifted will be found to be, — ' Because I bid you
— because it is my opinion — my will.' * Well,
but suppose I do not conform myself to this
will of yours?' ' O then you will do very
wrong,' — which being interpreted means, ' I
shall disapprove of your conduct/j

\ It will scarcely be denied that every man
acts with a view to his own interest — not a
correct view — because that would obtain for
him the greatest possible portion of felicity ; and
if every man, acting correctly for his own inte
rest, obtained the maximum of obtainable happi
ness, mankind would reach the millenium of
accessible bliss ; and the end of morality — the
general happiness — be accomplished . To prove
^ > that the immoral action is a miscalculation of

GENERAL STATEMENT. 13

self-interest — to show how erroneous an estimate

«

the vicious man makes of pains and pleasures,
is the purpose of the intelligent moralist./ Un
less he can do this he does nothing :— for, as has
been stated above, for a man not to pursue
what he deems likely to produce to him the
greatest sum of enjoyment, is in the very nature
of things impossible.

The object, then, of these pages is to promote
human happiness — the happiness of every man.
Your happiness, reader, and that of all besides.
It is to extend the dominion of happiness
wherever there is a being susceptible of its
impressions ; nor is the sphere of benevolent
action bounded by the human race. For if the
animals we call inferior have no title to our care,
on what foundation stands the claim of our own
species ? The chain of virtue will be found to
girdle the whole of the sensitive creation — the
happiness we can communicate to lower natures
is intimately associated with that of the human
race, — and that of the human race is closely
linked to our own.

It were, indeed, greatly to be desired that
some benevolent moralist should take the animal
creation under his patronage, and establish their
claims to the protection of legislation and to the
sympathies of the virtuous principle. Perhaps
this event is hardly to be anticipated, while so

14 DEONTOLOGY.

large a portion of the human race itself are
excluded from the influences of beneficence —
and treated like the inferior animals — not as
persons, but as things. True, the animal tribes
have little power to act upon human sensibilities
— few means of inflicting misery as a punish
ment for injustice and cruelty, and fewer still
of recompensing humanity and beneficence by
the communication of pleasure to man. We
deprive them of life ; — and this is justifiable —
their pains do not equal our enjoyments — there
is a balance of good. But why do we torment,
— why do we torture them ? It would be diffi
cult to find a reason why law should deny to
them its interference. The real question is — are
they susceptible of pain? Can pleasure be
communicated to them ? Who shall draw the
line, — and where is it to be drawn between the
gradations of animal life, beginning with man,
and descending to the meanest creature that
has any power of distinguishing between suffer
ing and enjoyment? Is the faculty of reason, or
that of discourse to determine ? ' But a full-
grown horse or dog, is, beyond comparison, a
more rational, as well as a more conversible
animal than an iniant of a day, or a week,
or even a month old. And suppose the case
were otherwise, what would it avail ? The
question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can

GENERAL STATEMENT. 15

they talk? but, Can they suffer r — Introduction
to the Principles of Morals, fyc. chap. xvii.
p. 309.

But, of sensitive beings, the human are the
nearest and naturally the dearest to us. And
how can their happiness be best provided for by
you ? How but by the exercise of the virtues
— of those qualities the union of which is
virtue ? Virtue divides itself into two branches
— prudence* and effective benevolence.f Pru
dence has its seat in the understanding. Effec
tive benevolence principally in the affections ;
those affections which, when intense and strong,
become passions.

Prudence again has two divisions — that which
respects ourselves, or the self-regarding,^: which

* There is a narrow and exclusive meaning attached to the
word prudence, and attached in a sense disassociated from
any moral quality, namely, the apt application of means to
an end. It is hardly necessary to say that it is not used in
this confined sense here.

f It has been necessary to create a compound, as no single
word in our language conveys the idea of benevolence in a
state of activity, or of benevolence and beneficence united.
Benevolence without beneficence is a fruitless tree, adding
nothing whatever to happiness; and beneficence apart from
benevolence is no virtue; it is no moral quality — it belongs
to a stock or a stone, as well as to a human being.

J This is used instead of selfish, which conveys an idea of
a vicious preference.

• 1C DEONTOLOGY.

might have been exercised by the prototype of
Robinson Crusoe, Alexander Selkirk, in his
uninhabited island ; — and that which respects
others, and which may be denominated extra-
regarding prudence.

Effective benevolence is either positive or
negative. Its operation is by action, or by
abstaining from action. Its business is either
with the augmentation of pleasure or the. dimi
nution of pain. When it operates positively by
the production of pleasure, power as well as
will must be possessed. When it operates
negatively by abstaining from action, nothing
but the will is required. The power of benevo
lent action is limited — the power of benevolent
abstaining is unbounded ; and abstinence from
action may involve a quantity of virtue or vice
equal to that growing out of action itself. There
are cases in which a man might as properly be
punished for murder who had failed to do what
lie was bound to do in order to prevent murder,
as the actual murderer himself,

jit is a sad reflection withal, that the quantity
of happiness which any, even the mightiest, can
produce, is small compared with the amount of
misery he may create by himself or others..
Not that the proportion of misery in the human
race exceeds that of happiness ; for the sum of
misery being limited, to a great extent, by the

GENERAL STATEMENT. 17

will of the sufferer, he possesses, for the most
part, some power of relief.

But the tendency of effective benevolence is
to increase by exercise. The more we pour out
its wealth upon others, the greater does the
stock of wealth become which we ourselves
possess. The diffusion of its riches is the very
source of its opulence. He who secures for
himself a pleasure, or avoids for himself a pain,
influences his own happiness directly ; — he who
provides a pleasure, or prevents a pain to another,
indirectly advances his own happiness.

! What is happiness? It is the possession of
pleasure with the exemption from pafy. It
is in proportion to the aggregate of pleasures
enjoyed, and of pains averted./ And [what is
virtue ? It is that which most contributes to
happiness, — that which maximises pleasures and
minimises pains. Vice, on the contrary, is that
which lessens happiness, or contributes to un-
happiness.

The first law of nature is to wish our own
happiness; and the united voices of prudence
and efficient benevolence, add, — Seek the happi
ness of others, — seek your own happiness in the
happiness of others.:

Prudence, in common parlance, is the adapta
tion of means to an end. In the moral field that
end is happiness. The subjects on which pru-

VOL. it. c

18 DEONTOLOGY.

dence is to be exercised are ourselves, and all
besides ; ourselves as instrumental, and all be
sides as instrumental to our own felicity. \JTo_.
obtain the greatest portion of happiness for him
self, is the object of every rational being. Every
man is nearer to himself, and dearer to himself,
than he can be to any other man ; and no other
man can weigh for him his pains and pleasures.
Himself must necessarily be his own first concern .
His interest must, to himself, be the primary
interest ; nor, on examination, will this position
be found unfriendly to virtue and happiness; for
how should the happiness of all be obtained to
the greatest extent, but by the obtainment by
every one for himself, of the greatest possible
portion?_/

Of what can the sum total of happiness be
made up, but of the individual units ? What is
demanded by prudence_and benevolence, is re
quired by necessity. Existence itself depends
for its continuance on the self-regarding principle.^
Had Adam cared more for the happiness of Eve
than for his own, and Eve, at the same time, more
for the happiness of Adam than for her own,
Satan might have saved himself the trouble of
temptation. Mutual misery would have marred
all prospects of bliss, and the death of both have
brought to a speedy finale the history of man.

And what is the important deduction from

GENERAL STATEMENT. 19

these postulates ? Are they anti-social in their
consequences? Nay! they are in the highest
degree philanthropic and beneficent. For^/how
can a man be happy, but by obtaining the
friendly affections of those on whom his happi
ness depends ? And how can he obtain their
friendly affections, but by convincing them that
he gives them his own in exchange ? And how
can he best convince them, but by giving them
these friendly affections in reality; and if he
give them in reality, the evidence will be folmd
in his words and deeds. Helvetius said, that
* in order to love mankind, we ought to expect
little from them.' We must be moderate in our
calculations — moderate in our exactions. Pru
dence requires that we should not raise too high
the standard of our hopes ; for disappointment
will diminish our own enjoyments, and our good
will to others : whereas the unanticipated ser
vice done to us, coming with the charm of sur
prise, will bring with it a grea4er sum of plea
sure, and strengthen the benevolent dispositions
in our relations with others.

The principle of utility, then, in order to pre
serve its influence, must be habitually kept in
view; and to this end, in the expression of every
maxim subordinate to it, let its relation to that
principle be seen. Let it not be thought sufficient
that the reason assigned for a practice is in itself

20 DEONTOLOGY.

in conformity with an estimate of a supposed
result of happiness, — or with a vague notion of
some useful object to be accomplished ; but let
such conformity be constantly dwelt upon, be
brought forward for examination and approval
and traced into all its consequences of future
good and evil. This is the only expedient to
prevent persons not sufficiently imbued with
the principle— persons who have not climbed
those heights on which utility has fixed its
throne — from being led astray by the despotic
dogma of asceticism, or the sympathies of a mis
calculating and misdirected benevolence. Let
the moralist regard the great Deontological
Law, as steadily as the Turnsole looks upon the
sun.

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED. 21

CHAPTER II.

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED — TERM WHY
ADOPTED.

DEONTOLOGY is derived from the Greek words,
TO Seov (that which is proper) and Aoyia, know
ledge — meaning the knowledge of what is right|
or proper ; and it is here specially applied to ?
the subject of morals, or that part of the field
of action which is not the object of public
legislation. As an art, it is the doing wl at is
fit to be done ; as a science, the knowing what
is fit to be done on every occasion.

But the inquiry, as applied by the individual
to his own rule of conduct, resolves itself into
a question as to what he himself approves —
what can be made to appear to himself as fit
to be approved on the given occasion. And
why should he declare his approbation of a
particular course of conduct? Undoubtedly,
because the approbation may lead to its adop
tion. And it will be thus conducive to it.
Public opinion is made up of individual
opinions ; and public opinion is that which
constitutes the' popular or moral sanction. A

22 DEONTOLOOV.

large quantity of recompense to act upon our
hopes, and a large quantity of punishment to
influence our fears, are in the hands of popular
opinion. [Of this influential power, every in
dividual iiTffie community forms a part; and
may exercise and apply his portion of reward
or punishment, — reward for the acts which
merit his approbation — punishment for those of
which he disapproves. He has thus a power
over motives, and that to the extent in which
he can dispose of the matter of pleasure and pain.
These motives may sometimes be brought
into operation by merely indicating their ex
istence ; at other times they may be created :
and under both circumstances they will in
fluence human conduct ; nor can the effect be
always foreseen. The affections and the will
are touched by the motives prescribed to them,
just as the Eolean harp-strings vibrate to the
passing wind. By presenting motives, we
necessitate acts ; by awakening expectation of
eventual pain or pleasure, we influence cha
racter. In proportion to the confidence felt in
the opinions and f->"d!y disposition of the
teacher, will be the sh% fence of the learner;
in proportion to the p?.in or pleasure excited
by the disapprobation, or approbation, which
the instructor may be able to attach to different
actions, will be the power of the instructor to

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED. 23

enforce or to prevent those actionsTJ And the
test of the value of the worlc Tie~enters upon
will be its harmony with some recognised
principles, by which he consents that his in
struction shall be tried.

The business of the Deontologist is to bring
forth, from the obscurity in which they have
been buried, those points of duty, in which,
by the hands of nature, a man's interests have
been associated with his enjoyments, — in which
his own well-being has been connected, com
bined, and identified, with the well-being of <
others ; to give, in a word, to the social, all
the influence of the self-regarding motive. He <
is to use, for the production of the greatest sum
of happiness, those elements of happiness
which exist in the breast of every man ; to
extend the domain of felicity, by developing
the principles which are co-extensive with
the existence of man — the self-regarding prin
ciples being necessarily, and happily, the
strongest. For such an artist, there is no want
of work, — there can be no want of work, while
remediable evil is to be found in the world.
His business is to establish his propositions,
by bringing a balance of happiness, out of each
of them, — a balance to somebody — a balance to
the one, or to the many.

The principle, then, on which Deontology is

24 DEONTOLOGY.

grounded, is the principle of Utility ; in other
words, that every action is right or wrong —
worthy or unworthy — deserving approbation or
disapprobation, in proportion to its tendency to
contribute to, or to diminish the amount of
public happines^ And that the public sanction
will, in as far as the subject is understood, be
given to that line of conduct, which most
promotes the public happiness, is a corollary
requiring no arguments for its establishment.

Three very obvious inquiries grow out of
these remarks, and will be constantly kept in
view during the progress of our investigations.

1. What does the public happiness require?

2. Is public opinion in harmony with the public
interest or happiness ; and 3, as the practical
application, What line of conduct ought to be
pursued in each individual case which presents
itself for consideration ?

The end being marked out, and acknowledged
to be wise and good, it becomes the primary
object to ascertain,] whether that end is best
promoted by the opinions held, and the conduct
pursued in accordance with these opinions ;
• whether, in a word, what the world calls
morality, is really that happiness-producing
instrument which it ought to become. And the
question must be asked, and the test applied,
in every portion of the field of conduct.

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED. 25

Morality, Religion, Politics, can indeed only
have one common object.

If the politician, moralist, and divine, all
know what they are about, their purposes can
be no other than the same.

^The politician's end is universally allowed
to be happiness — the happiness of the state —
the greatest happiness possible among the in
dividuals of a state, during the present life, j

To the politician, as such, licence is given
to make this his end, by all parties, whatever
may be their opinions on religion or morals,
by all parties, without one dissenting voice.

This being the case, it were strange if the
ends of the other two were allowed to be differ
ent. For were they so — if different and, upon
occasion, opposite were pursued — if the Di
vine and the Moralist contemplated results
contrary to those intended by the Politician,
they would be in a state of universal warfare.
Each would be reduced, for his security, or for
the furtherance of his end, to fight against the
other two with such weapons as he is master of.
The divine would denounce his antagonist to the
vengeance of the Celestial Tribunal ; would
imagine, or would forge decrees from it, and
endeavour to persuade the by-standers to execute
them. The moralist would thunder out the
anathemas of his self-erected Court Moral, or,

26 DEONTOLOGY.

as some affect to denominate It, common sense ;
would call his enemy fool, and villain, and hypo
crite, and nonsense- talker ; and make interest
with the by-standers to treat him as if he were
so. And the politician, if incommoded by such
sort of artillery, would be driven to defend him
self by such means as he is provided with.
And, indeed, if things were to come to this, the
politician would be found rather too hard for the
other two ; and the upshot of the fray would
be, did not his own principles, and the con
sciousness of their value restrain him, that he
would set his arms a-kimbo, and, like Lord
Peter in the history, kick his obsteperous bre
thren out of doors. Not that this is a conduct
by any means to be recommended to him,*
(though upon the score of what is commonly
called justice, they certainly would have no
reason to complain) because, if anything can be
predicated of the future, it is that, in this coun
try at least, such violence never can be needful,
needful to his own purpose ; a purpose which
this volume is intended to forward. Here no

* The tranquillity and good temper of a disputant is in
proportion to the inward consciousness of the aptitude of his
arguments to produce conviction. Accordingly, mathema
ticians, so long as they confine themselves within the pro
vince of their science, cannot be, and accordingly never have
been, otherwise than tranquil.

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED. 27

lesfcon will be given which persecution is to
enforce. It were better far to join the ranks of
the antagonists ; for nothing is so likely to frus
trate the ends of truth, as to league it with the
infliction of useless suffering. This the Deonto-
logist will not recommend to the Politician ;
but what may be safely recommended to him
(and it will be perfectly competent to the pur
poses as well of punishment as of defence) is, to
let the talkers talk on, and never to give himself
any trouble about what they say. Let him but
pursue his end industriously, and show that he
pursues it, he need not fear but that in a free
and enlightened country (indeed in any country,
if he give such an example) the majority of the
people will ultimately lend him their concur
rence, and in the Deontologist he will find a
mighty ally.

The line which separates the dominions of the
Legislator from those of the Deontologist is
tolerably distinct and obvious. 'Where legal re
wards and punishments cease to interfere with
human actions, there precepts of morality come
in with their influences. The conduct which is
not given over to the tribunals of the state for
judgment, belongs to the tribunals of opinion.
] There are a variety of acts in which judicial
Lptfmshment would be unprofitably wasted, but
which may be safely and properly transferred to

28 DEONTOLOGY.

extra-official punitory visitations.) Of conduct
injurious to the community, a large portion
necessarily escapes the cognition and the visita
tion of penal law, while it falls under the obser
vation, and is submitted to the award of, the
more extensive and penetrating cognizance of
popular retribution. Thus the crimes which
are recognised by the penal code, if they escape
detection and punishment, whether from want of
sufficient evidence, or any other cause, may be
brought into the field of Deontology. But it is
not of these that it is proposed to treat. It is
desirable, no doubt, to widen the field of moral,
and to narrow that of political action. Legisla
tion has intruded too far into a territory which
does not belong to it. It has frequently inter
fered with actions, when its interference has
only produced a balance of evil ; and, what is
worse, it has interfered with opinions, particu
larly on religious topics, where its interferences
have been in the highest degree pernicious. In
a word, Deontology, or Private Ethics, may be
considered the science by which happiness is
created out of motives extra-legislatorial — while
Jurisprudence is the science by which law is
applied to the production of felicity.

The object of every man's wish and of every
man's endeavour, from the beginning of life to
the end of it, is to increase his own felicity: —

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED. 29

his felicity — as connected with pleasure and
disconnected with pain.

But again what is pleasure — and what is
pain ? Does every man form the same estimate ?
Far from it. That is pleasure which a man's
judgment, aided by his memory, recommends
and recognises to his feelings as pleasure. LNo.,
man can allow another to decide for him as to
what is pleasure, — or what is the balance or the
amount of pleasure. And hence a necessary
consequence, that every man of ripe age and
sound mind ought on this subject to be left to
judge and act for himself— and that the attempts
to give a direction to his conduct inconsistent
with his views of his own interest, is no better
than folly and impertinence. / And the more
closely the matter is examined the more de
cidedly will this be found to be the case.

The business of the moralist, what then does
it become ? He can place before the eyes of
the inquirer a sketch of the probable future
more correct and complete than would have
presented itself to his view in the midst of
present influences. The moralist may assist
him in making reflections and drawing con
clusions — in taking a more comprehensive audit
of the past, — and from thence deducing calcu
lations or conjectures for the time to come.
He may point out ends which had not suggested

30 DEONTOLOGY,

themselves, — and means by which they can be
accomplished. He may enable him to wisely
choose between balancing pleasures or pains.
He may mark out occasions where enjoyments
may be reaped or sufferings avoided. And
thus far he will be labouring in an honest and
honourable vocation. In fact^jjojbe most useful
he will be employed somewhat in the character
of a scout — a man hunting for consequences —
consequences resulting from a particular course
— collecting them as well as he can, and pre
senting them for the use of those who may be
disposed to profit by his services. His task is
humble — his labor is great — his reward can
only be the anticipation of good to be done.

,Jt is not thus that public instructors have gene
rally proceeded. They have erected for them
selves, in the field of moral action, a high throne;
thence, in the character of absolute and infallible
monarchs, have they dictated to the world below,
and sent out their commands and prohibitions
for prompt and peremptory recognition. The
wantonness of a political ruler has often been
the topic of animadversion ; the self-erected
arbitrator wielding like the madman in his cell
his imaginary sceptre, is, in truth, more egre-
giously wanton. A certain sense of responsi
bility — a fear of reaction may control the
despotism of an acknowledged tyrant, but where

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED. 31

is the control which is to check the waywardness
and presumption of the self-elected dictator of
moralsT/

LHis-lone is the tone of the pedagogue or the
magistrate ; he is strong and wise, and knowing
and virtuous. His readers are weak, and foolish,
and ignorant, ' and vicious ; — his voice is the
voice of power, — and it is from the superiority
of his wisdom that his power is derived.;

And if all this were so without prejudice to
to the public, it might be the gratification of
pride to the individual — pleasure to him — and

so much pleasure gained. But the misfortune

t • -

is, that the assumption of this authority has
for its natural attendants — indolence and igno
rance. I Even where precepts are founded on
good reasons, the development of those reasons
is a matter of considerable exertion and diffi
culty — it is a task to which few have been found
competent. But to set up laws and precepts
is a task of no difficulty at all — a task to which
all men are competent, the foolish as well as the
wise, — a task wLich the foolish indeed are most
eager to engage in, — for ignorance has no more
convenient cloak than arrogance.

The talisman of arrogance, indolence, and
ignorance, is to be found in a single word, an
authoritative imposture, which in these pages it
will be frequently necessary to unveil. It is

32 DEONTOLOGV.

the word 'ought' — 'ought or ought not,' as
circumstances may be. ' In,deciding ' You ought
to do this — you ought not to do it/— is not
every question of morals set at resjtj[ /

If the use of the word be admissible at all, it
' ought ' to be banished from the vocabulary of
morals.

There is another word, which has a talismanic
virtue too, and which might be wielded to de
stroy many fatal and fallacious positions. ' You
ought y — 'you ought not/ says the dogmatist.
Why ? retorts the inquirer — Why ? To say
' you ought/ is easy in the extreme. To stand
the searching penetration of a Why? is not so
easy.

Why ought I ? Because you ought — is the
not unfrequent reply ; — on which the Why ?
comes back again with the added advantage of
having obtained a victory.

It cannot, may it be answered, be the mere
love of ease that drives the instructor to adopt
this phraseology; the love of ease would not
induce him to write even thus glibly and un
wisely, but would keep him from writing at all.

But motives there are stronger than the love
of ease. There may be advantages of many
sorts growing out of a particular line of argu
ment. _Oiit of conformity with public opinion
grows reputation— out of reputation, wealth and

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED. 33

power. A man must keep well with public
opinion. To oppose current prejudices, to
bend back an established bias, can hardly be
the conduct of him who desires to present him
self in fair proportions to the worldly

The world's judgment is on the side of seve
rity ; for (in the restraints imposed upon his
neighbour, every man feels an increase of his
own power — a gratification of his own pride.
He easily prepares for himself an exemption that
shall satisfy his own mind, while, by indulging
in the strong language of animadversion, he gives
evidence that he is free from the offence which
he so vehemently reprobates — for who would be
forward in passing condemnation on himself?/
From laxity he has nothing to hope — everything
to fear ; from severity everything to hope, and
nothing to fear— j-aiic^so^ with ' ought' and ' ought
not' for his instruments, he goes on laying
commands and prohibitions upon his fellows —
imposing chains and burthens — not the less
galling and afflictive because they have their
source in metaphors and fictions. J

In all this there is seemingly much profit, and
little pain. Little waste of toil — little waste of
thought. Observation, inquiry, reflection — these
are all superfluous, as superfluous as they are la
borious. IFolly and arrogance — the blindest folly
and the most assuming arrogance — find them-

VOL. I. D

34 DEONTOLOGY.

selves altogether at their ease. By these caterers
to the moral tastej pleasures are ordered off the
table — pains ordered on instead of theny, just as
by the word of the physician of Barataria, the
meat was marched away from the presence of
the famished Sancho ; but the physician of
Barataria did not replace it by poison.

Sacrifice' — sacrifice is the demand of the every
day moralist^ Sacrifice, taken by itself, is mis
chievous, and mischievous is the influence that
connects morality with suffering. Little does he
seem to be aware how far morality may be
effective without any thing painful. Its associa
tions are cheerfulness and joy — not gloom and
misery. Certain it is, the less the sacrifice
made of happiness, the more must there be of
happiness remaining. Let it be obtained gratis
where it can — where it cannot be had without
sacrifice, let the sacrifice be as small as possible;
where the sacrifice must be great, let it be ascer
tained that the happiness will be greater. This
is the true economy of pleasure — this is the pro
lific cultivation of virtue.

PZDXTOLOGY, or that which is proper, has
been chosen as a fitter term than any other which
could be found, to represent in the field of mo
rals, the principle of Utilitarianism , or that which
is useful. Utilitarianism offers too vague and
undefined an impression to the mind. If the

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED. 35

term could be immediately and directly associ
ated with the production of felicity, it might be
appropriately and conveniently employed.

The occasions on which the deontological
principle is called into action, are either perma
nent or transient — public or private. Public
occasions are those which exist between man
and man, as members of society in general — a
large proportion of which occasions, which may
be properly called political, do not come within
the scope of this work. " Man's private relations
.are either natural or factitious — those which may
be considered as having birth for their source,
and those which are accidental. These divisions
will be found convenient on the demamj for the
practical application of the moral code.]

The word utility, with its conjugates, use
ful and useless, uselessness and usefulness, has
not been found applicable to all the cases where
the principle itself is brought into operation.

In some instances it appears too weak to ex
press the force of the obligation of which it is
desirable to give the idea. The mind will not
be satisfied with such phrases as, 'It is useless to
commit murder' — or, ' it would be useful to pre
vent it :' and so of incendiarism and acts of great
magnitude of mischief. Hence its insufficiency
in the field of legislation.

The principles of asceticism and sentimental-

36 DEONTOLOGY.

ism being in a state of rivalry with the principle
of utility, the employment of the term might be
made, on every occasion, the ground for reject
ing propositions which otherwise would be
admitted. It pre-supposes, as it were, the truth
of the doctrine of utility.

In the word propriety, with its conjugates,
proper and improper, the desideratum appears
to have been found. It is a natural emanation
from Deontology, or the knowledge of what is
proper.

There is no objection to it in respect of inten
sity of import: no crime, however heinous, but
will be admitted to be improper. It is true,
that to the rhetorician, an expression thus used
may appear unsuited to the occasion, and he
may deem the word itself improper. His object
being to put others in a passion, his course is to
appear to be in a passion himself; while,
by so unexciting a term, not passion, but the
absence of passion is expressed. But to the
logician such an objection will not be formidable ;
and it is for logical, and not for rhetorical
purposes, that the word is wanted.

It has, too, the usefulness of impartiality. It
does not of itself decide between any of the
systems — and may be applied with equal pro
priety to the developement of each. Probably
neither the ascetic nor the sentimentalist will

DEONTOLOGY EXPLAINED. 37

regard it as inappropriate, unless on the ground
of its coolness. Both will certainly admit to be
proper that of which they approve ; both that
of which they disapprove, to be improper. It
will, at all events, serve to express the two
characters of an act, leaving any additional lan
guage of praise or blame to be applied at will.
It is the announcement of a judgment formed,
and that without any intimation of the affections
with which that judgment has been accompa
nied, or the ground on which it has been deter
mined.

To the Utilitarian it will have the convenience
of covering the whole domain of action, and
giving expression to the sentiment of Approba
tion or disapprobation, to whichever part of the
field of duty the act may belong.

38 DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER III.

ANTI-DEONTOLOGICAL PROPOSITIONS REMOVED
SUMMUM BONUM.

BEFORE the edifice of moral truth can be
erected it is needful to clear away a vast heap
of rubbish which obstructs the progress of the
moral architect^/ Motives different from those
which utility recognises — ends hostile to those
which utility proposes, have been and are the
topics of self-elected moralists. When these are
disposed of, the path of the Deontologist will be
clear ; until they are disposed of, his path will
be perplexed with their intrusions.

'The end of the Deontologist — it cannot be
too often repeated — is happiness. ' Something
that is not happiness, something different,
something contradistinguished from happiness,
was proposed by ancient philosophers. It was
the summum bonum.

And the summum bonum, the sovereign good,
we can hardly better trace than in that accre
dited history of it, to be found in the Oxford
Compendium, once the text-book and authority
of that famous university.

SUMMUM BONUM. 39

In what does the summum bonum consist?
The question was debated by multitudes, de
bated from generation to generation, by men
assuming to themselves the dictatorship of right
and wrong.

The summum bonum, in what does it consist ?
What does the term signify ? Nonsense, and
nothing more.

The summum bonum, — the sovereign good —
what is it ? The philosopher's stone that con
verts all metals into gold — the balm Hygeian
that cures all manner of diseases. It is this
thing, and that thing, and the other thing — it is
any thing but pleasure — it is the Irishman's
apple-pie made of nothing but quinces.

If it were any thing, what would it be? Could
it be anything but pleasure ? A pleasure, or
the cause of pleasure? Supreme pleasure —
pleasure without pain — happiness maximised ?
What fool has there ever been so foolish as not
to know that by no man, in no time, at no
place, has such a prize been ever found ?

In every walk of discipline error is a sort of
vestibule through which men are condemned
to pass on their approaches towards truth.

^Wliile Xenophon was writing history, and Eu
clid giving instruction in geometry, Socrates and
Plato were talking nonsense under pretence of
teaching wisdom and morality. /This morality of

40 DEONTOLOGY.

theirs consisted in words, — this wisdom of theirs
was the denial of matters known to every man's
experience, and the assertion of other matters
opposed to every man's experience. And ex
actly in the proportion in which their notions
on this subject differed from those of the mass
of mankind, exactly in that proportion were
they below the level of mankind.

The people who took no pleasure in the
uttering of any such nonsense ; the people were
contented to reap common pleasures under the
guidance of common sense. They were called
ignorant and the vulgar herd, yet they crowded
into their existence a balance of well-being,
and most of them now and then a portion of
happiness. Well-being their ordinary fare,
happiness, a slight taste of it for an occasional
feast. This was good enough for the ignorant
vulgar; not so for the learned sages, — men,
who by whatever name they called their own
sageships, were called by others wisest of men
, wise men (<TO<£OI), or lovers of wisdom
i), who held their heads aloft and poured
forth their streams of sophistry.

'. To -the profane vulgar they left the enjoyment
of any such pleasure as might fall in their
way. For their own disciples they reserved
a thing — a beautiful thing which they called
TO ayaQov the summum bonum — the sovereign

SUMMUM BONUM. 41

good. What was it ? was it pleasure ? Oh no !
pleasure was not good enough for them ; it was
something better than pleasure, and it could
not be better without being different from it./

Now had their practice been what their
preaching was, it could only have been said that
they resembled the dog who, snapping at the
shadow, lost the substance, But theirs was no
such folly. ^Pleasure was good for one thing —
summum bonum for another; pleasure was to
be enjoyed, summum bonum to be talked of.
While they were all of them chattering about
the summum bonum, each was amusing himself
with the gross enjoyments of sense. They had
their favorites, without number, some whose
names arejcnown, others whom no history has

canonizecL^J

It is as amusing to look at some of the con
tests among men called sages, as it is instructive
to trace their results. While in later times a
set of physical philosophers were hunting for
the universal panacea, the moral philosophers
were running after their summum bonum. Ex-

* Dependent as were the philosophers on public opinion,
they knew better than to allow themselves to be governed, as
James the First was, by those who administered to their
pleasures. The uncontrollable character of the passion of
Socrates — of Socrates, the most prudent of the whole — is
admitted by himself in a very extraordinary confession.

42 DEONTOLOGY.

cellent objects both, and all agreed that both
were in existence — both were findable, but
they did not agree as to where they were to be
found.

' The idea of good,' said one, — there it is, —
there the summum bonum is to be found. Catch
the idea of good, and you have caught the sum-
mum bonum. And now, having caught it, are
you a bit the happier? are you, with your sum-
mum bonum, happier than the happiest of men
who has not got it? But when you have got it,
what will you do with it ? — you need not per
plex yourself with the question — it is time
enough to know when you have managed to
get it.

Two sets of philosophers took to this view of
the matter : the Platonists and the Academics ;
the Platonists, including, of course, the master-
manufacturer of nonsense, from whom his fol
lowers took their nonsense and their names;

Nonsense is very like an eel : when you think
you have it fast, it slips through your ringers,
and in comes another lot of nonsense in the
stead of it ; for after giving the summum bo
num of these philosophers — the idea of good,
as if this were not unintelligible enough — in the
same breath, in the same sentence, and in the
very next words, in comes the compound matter
with a sive—sive visione ct fnifyione Dei — i. e. the

SUMMUM BONUM. 43

vision and fruition — the seeing and enjoying of
God.

Two things are these — two separate things,
and these separate things are synonymous with
* the idea of good,' — the sight of God — the en
joyment of God. The God of Christianity, the
God of the Bible — this cannot be, for he is not
to be seen — he is invisible; what can, indeed, be
meant by the God of the Platonists and Acade
mics ? which of their Gods, as they were all
heathens, and had Gods by thousands — which
of them did they ever enjoy ? and how did they
enjoy them ?

But we are still at sea, and another set cry
out, ' The habit of virtue/— the habit of virtue
is the summum bonum : either this is the jewel
itself, or the casket in which it will be found.
Lie all your life long in your bed with the rheu
matism in your loins, the stone in your bladder,
and the gout in both your feet — have but the
habit of virtue, and you have the summum bo
num. Much good may it do you. Your con
dition will be no impediment — negative virtue
is virtue no doubt. It will not be easy to fall
into the practice of vice — and of your summum
bonum, the seat, if it be any where, must be in
your head ; now, would you be content to have
the stone in your bladder, the rheumatism in

44 DEONTOLOGY*

your loins, and the gout in your feet, even
though you could get your head crammed with
summum bonums ?

Lest the sense of this nonsense should be
mistaken, behold the Oxford Instructor, with a
remark of kindred sagacity at his fingers' ends :
'For,' says he, 'reason shows that a naked
habit is not of any, the least value, unless it be
referred to observation, and brought forward into
act and exercise.' A habit without an art? A
habit in existence, and not so much as a single
act in it ! A habit formed, and out of the acts,
which make the habit not so much as a single
act ever done ! and so, lest you should fall into
any such error, and, in consequence, any such
misconduct, as that of persevering in the habit
of virtue, without ever having performed a single
act of virtue, — the valuable information thus
given is benignantly bestowed.

But, to know where the summum bonum is
noty is of little service enough, unless you can
also learn where it is. And we have at last Vir
tue — virtue itself, that is the summum bonum.

Ponendum est igitur summum hominis bo
num in ipsd virtute. What? In the habit of
virt ae ? Oh no ! not in any such thing : that is
the very error against which you have just been
warned — have virtue, you need not trouble

SUMMUM BONUM. 45

yourself about the habit of it. You may, in
deed, have it, if you like, but no summum bo-
num will you get by it.

Ponendum est igitur summum hominis bonum
in ipsa virtute. Nothing can be more positive,
nothing more decided : whereupon, immediately
upon the back of this concise nonsense comes a
torrent of diffuse nonsense, by which every
thing that was settled is wasted away,

'And therefore,' continues the instructor,
' and therefore in acting according to the best
and most perfect virtue, consists the essence of
human felicity.' Yet, to entirety and perfection
of human felicity are required certain ' good
things of the body and fortune ; and, moreover,
that serene pleasure of mind which is born'
(though it should seem in a sort of sly way) —
is born, ' subnascitur, from the conscience of
things well done/

'And this felicity/ he goes on to assure us, ' is
a steady kind of good, and not easily can it be
lost/ With the assurance you have the grounds
and reasons of the assurance : — « For,' says he,
' virtue, in which its foundation is laid (the sum-
mum bonum being itself the virtue), neither can
it be snatched out of hands unwilling to part
with it ; nor, when the good things of the body
and fortune are gone, does it immediately go
along with them. In a word, by the loss of

46 DEONTOLOGY.

external good things the essence of felicity is
not taken away ; all that happens to it is to be
diminished, and to have its integrity mutilated/

But there was another class of philosophers ;
hogs indeed, who did not see the visions, nor
enjoy the enjoyments of the Platonists and
Academics, with their divinity or divinities;
nor stumble, with the Stoics, on their habits of
virtue — the sensual hogs — the Epicureans. The
summum bonum being the thing sought — where
did they look — who would have thought it ?
They, hogs as they were, looked for it in plea
sure. So says the Instructor. It was in plea
sure, yea ! in bodily pleasure. Yet on the very
face of the story there is incorrectness in this
account of them. That to them pleasure was
pleasure, is highly probable; that if they had
been sent to hunt for summum bonum, they
would have looked towards pleasure, that, too,
is very likely : but that in their account of plea
sures, pleasures not bodily were omitted, is
neither probable, a priori, nor is it true in
fact.

Some pleasures have their seat in the body —
others in the mind, To whom is this most
obvious fact unknown ? By whom is it unex
perienced ? Could these philosophers be igno
rant of that with which every body is ac
quainted?

SUMMUM BONUAf. 47

But having started the subject of bodily plea
sure, the Instructor tells us that, at all events,
the summum bonum is not there. And why ?

' Because the part of the human frame to
which they belong, is the ignoble part;' and,
secondly, ' They do not last' — they are short :
and, thirdly, ' Every now and then, when they
are over, they leave unsavoury recollections, and
bring blushes.'

They are ignoble. The life of A. is filled up
with pleasures, all of them ignoble, all of them
intense — none of them alloyed with pains. In
the life of B. such pleasures as there are, are of
the noble kind, but all of them mingled and out
weighed by pains. Whose lot of the two would
a man in his senses choose ?

The part — the semi-ignoble, be it what it
may — is it less necessary than any other part ?
Ignoble as it is, would the compendium-writer —
would his master have liked to have been with
out it ? But, as thus applied, ignoble means any
thing but ignoble ; the sound of the word is all
there is in it. Let it mean, however, what he
will have it mean. Take two men, Felix and
Miser. The life of Felix is crowded with plea
sures — with ignoble pleasures — pure pleasures ;
i.e. pleasures unalloyed with pain. The life of
Miser has pleasures too — noble pleasures ; each
pleasure faint, and each of them outweighed by

48 DEONTOLOGY.

pains. Felix or Miser, tell us philosopher!
which would you rather be ?

Alas ! alas ! this all a mistake. It is not the
particular organ, it is the body, the whole
body, which is the ignoble thing. The organ
may be subservient to the pleasure, but the
pleasure is subservient to the body. Well,
allowing ignoble, though it means nothing, to
mean any thing, and that the body is as ignoble
as heart can wish — what then ? The seat of the
pleasure, be the pleasure what it will, is it not
in the mind ? Did any body ever see a body
that felt pleasure when the mind was out of it ?

Again, the duration of bodily pleasure is short.
Good again ; and what if it be ? Take each by
itself, there is but little of it. Well, and what
of that ? Take a guinea out of your pocket, and
get the change for it — shillings — farthings :
which is worth most, the guinea or the change ?
Which is the heavier, a pound of gold or a pound
of feathers ? When you have answered these,
you shall be told, if you like, whether the objec
tion about shortness has any thing in it but
words.

Once more : the recollection of bodily plea
sures is unsavory, and demands blushes. When
enjoyed in an improper manner, let the recollec
tion of them be ever so unsavoury, those enjoyed
in a proper manner, will they be the worse for

SUMMUM BOXUM. 49

it? Let those which have been bought with a
balance of pain, bring blushes — no blushes need
there be for those which have left a balance of
pleasure.

All these summum bonumists have their re
spective names ; there are three sets, however,
without names : the denominated^eing all in the
wrong, the undenominated equally so. True !
they are all in the wrong, if the Oxford Instructor
be in the right. Greatly in the wrong are they,
even though they obtain what they desire, should
they suppose they had obtained the summum
bonum ; and greatly in the wrong, again, if,
having possessed themselves of what they value,
they should value it at its worth.

First comes the vulgus, — Anglice, [tHe mob.'
These place their summum bonum in riches —
riches in great quantities. v These are all in the
wrong box, though so many of them there be.
And reason good ; for this wealth of which the
vulgar are sofond,;is but of small value, be there
ever so much of it. In the first place, / it is
slippery and unsteady;' in the next, *it[isjiot
loved for its own sake/ but for the sake of some
thing else that is to be obtained fonJjtj and, in
the third place, whom does it belong to ? ' Not
to the owner, but to Fortune/

It is slippery and unsteady ; which is, in plain
English, the varnish being stripped off, it is

vor. i. E

50 DEONTOLOGY.

liable to be lost. But the question is, what is
it worth, not to him who has it not, but to him
who has it ? And, as is well observed by Adam
Smith, in England at least, the country where
the tutor wrote, for one man who has lost
what he had, you have a good thousand who
have not only kept it, but added to it. But
these blindfold travellers in the paths of com
mon place, are wholly heedless of the history of
man — heedless of the changes which time has
introduced into the value and security of wealth.
That treasure, which in ancient days was with
great propriety associated with uncertainty and
mutability, might now be made to represent
possession in its maximum of security. In the
heart of Greece— in Athens, when Aristotle
wrote, land was at two years' purchase; in
England it is worth thirty years' purchase.

It is not desired for its own sake — it is only
desired because something which is desired may
be obtained in exchange for it. And if by it,
and for it, a man gets what he wants, in what
respect is it the less valuable ? If a man obtain
the object of his desire, what more would he
have? and if he has not the summum bonum
itself, has he not something just as good as
ever the summum bonum would be ?

But, worst of all, it is not ours — it is not in
our possession but in the temerity of Fortune.

SUMMUM BONUM. 51

* Non in nostrd potestate, sed in Forturiae temeri-
tate.' In this beautiful union of rhetoric with
poetry — in this dance of Fortune between the
two fates, lies the strength of the argument;
which strength, by the way, in the process of
being decanted out of Latin into English, mostly
evaporates. And what remains but this, which
was told us before, that wealth is a slippery sort
of thing — that it glides out of people's hands
— that it may glide out of ours? for such news,
once telling might well have sufficed.

There may be something more. Yes! we
learn that Fortune is a woman, and that woman
a rash one. Good in rhetoric — but this is a
book on Ethics. Good in rhetoric ? No ! not
even this ; for where design is not, neither can
rashness be.

/Next come your politicians and votaries of
ambition. In honor and in power, in the one
or the other, and nothing better, do these men
place their summum bonum.

The reasoning, if such a thing it can be
called, the reasoning is pretty much as before ;
the language a little changed, for it was neces
sary to say something new, and nothingness as
well as other matters may vary its shape.
Riches were slippery and unstable. Honor
and power are uncertain and deciduous ; —
depending for the most part on popular breath

52 DEONTOLOGY. '

or pretended favour. And, to add to the
chance of the discovery, Horace is called in to
sanction by his poetry the prose of our philo
sopher.

When it was of riches that our moralist had
to speak, he told us that it was not for them
selves, but for the sake of other things that they
were sought after. But neither in honor, no,
nor yet in power, whatever their votaries may
fancy, is there any intrinsic dignity ; or, if there
be intrinsic dignity, it is not of that sort which
should cause them to be either desired or
praised.

As to caducity, has not the objection been
answered when the objection of unsteadiness
was answered ? But has it a meaning at all ?
If it have, he who has found a meaning for it, is
not the Oxford Instructor. Honore ? what means
honore ? Honor or honors ; good reputation, or
political and factitious dignity : for in England
thus wide is the distinction between singular
and plural. Good repute — reputation — is it
that ? By accident, no doubt, may good repute
attend upon ill-desert ; and ill-repute upon good.
But if this disastrous state of things be possible
— if it sometimes be witnessed, its continuance
is of rare occurrence. Were there even more
truth in it than there is, the use of such an argu
ment little becomes a moralist ; to underrate the

SUMMUM BONUM. 53

power of the moral sanction, seems a strange
way of advancing morality : to throw his weight
into the scale of false opinion, and employ that
false opinion as an instrument in his craft, is a
sad exhibition for the moralist to make. Others
may undervalue, and cast aside the moral sanc
tion ; but is this fit for him to do ? To undervalue
it is to undervalue his own occupation — to be
come a tradesman flinging undeserved discredit
on his own wares.

Is it honors — factitious reputation — the plural
meaning? Here, as in the case of riches, the
worse it is to lose, the better it is to have them ;
the continuation of their enjoyment must be
contrasted with the cessation of their possession.
It is in the keeping them, and not in the parting
with them, that any body would look for the
summum bonum, who expected to find them
there. To keep them, to increase them, is the
ordinary course ; to lose them is but the acci
dental one.

But whether it be honor, or whether it be
power, what does pretended, what does simulated
mean? If favor has advanced a man to honor
or dignity, why should it be called insincere ;
and in what respect would "bd a man who is be
nefited by it be the better or worse, if, instead
of a degrading title, it had all the adornings which
the finest phraseology could gather around it?

54 DEONTOLOGY.

Last of all come a band of men, whom, sup
posing them to exist, he calls theoretics. These
men look to contemplation — to contemplation
alone for the summum bonum.

Contemplation ? To reach the summit of hu
man felicity, a man has nothing to do but to
contemplate. Who would not be a theoretic ?
Crede quod habes et habes. Believe you have
it, and it is yours ; and if there be any case
in which the truth of this maxim is exem^
plified, it is this ; — for between being happy,
and fancying one's self happy, where, as long
as the fancy lasts, where, what is the differ
ence?

Of these men surely may be said, and with
no less propriety, what Cicero said of another set
of men. 'Istos viros sine contumelia dimitti-
mus : sunt enim boni viri, et quandoquidem ita
sibi ipsis videtur beati.' They are a good set
of men ; and forasmuch as they are blessed in
their own opinion, — blessed are they.

Not so our moralist. Happy though they
may dream themselves, it is all a mistake of
theirs. He will show them why.

Why then? ' We are born for action,' he says ;
for action ; and in order to prove it, he summons
( the fabric of our nature' to give evidence :
whereupon he observes, that 'if in our actions
no action — ( no action of offices (or duties) takes

SUMMUM BONUM. 55

place, then the highest knowledge on arts or
sciences is in a certain sort defective, and will
be of little service to mankind/ This is rather
a roundabout way of coming at a matter of
fact. If scribere est agere, better proof was he
giving while scribbling his philosophy. And
there are only two objections to be urged —
the first, that all this means nothing : the second,
that if it did, it is nothing to the purpose.

But let the theoretic be produced, wrapt
up in his contemplations, thinking about any
thing else, or nothing else, and fancying him
self happy — so happy as to have found the sum-
mum bonum, — and let our philosopher come with
his ' fabric of our nature' to batter down the
theoretic's felicity. Will the theoretic believe
his own senses, which tell him that he has got
the summum bonum, or our philosopher who
assures him he has not ?

In fine, let him fling away the Platonists,
Academicians, and Stoics; they shall be as
much in the wrong as he pleases ; but for the
rest, there is not one of them so completely in
the wrong as he. Every one of the others —
whether he found the sovereign good or not, found
some good, but not an atom of good has our
philosopher found where he looked for it. How
should he? It was not there. They might

56 DEONTOLOGY.

have been wrong, but they did not contradict
themselves — did not bring out one sentence
just to have it annihilated by another.

His summum bonum — any summum bonum,
must amount to nothing without a dose of those
other things on which he pours out his scorn
and drags through the kennel. But what dose?
This he does not pretend to know ; it is a
moderate dose, and that is all he can say about
it. With any other summum bonum than his
you have at all events something — with his you
have nothing but moonshine, and not moonshine
enough to show you your way,

It may be urged, after all, that however bad
the logic of these different pretenders, their
ethics were good — that the effect was good,
whatever may have been the cause ; and that
the badness of the argument matters little, if
the effect were good. Were you to choose for
your friend, between two men, one of whom
always reasoned well and acted ill towards you
• — while the other reasoned ill but acted well ;
should you hesitate in the selection ? Certainly
not. But of the antique sages, much of their
logic has come down to us, and few of their
actions. Arguing as they argue, their conduct
might have been good or bad : nothing is more
common than for men to have two theories ; one

SUMMUM BONUM. 57

for show, and another for use. ? If bad logic,

— --«.»j

however, be any where mischievous, it is in the
field of morals. Such doctrines as we have
been exhibiting, could never have been held but
at the expense of the understanding ; and deep
indeed must be the prostration of the under
standing, enfeebled indeed must its strength
have become, ere trash like this could have
mastered it.

But these are valuable articles of ammunition
in the hands of those who think for the public,
to let fly among jmeji whom precedents serve
instead of brains, who, knowing or caring little
about what had best be done in future, will
hear of nothing but what has been done before^

There is great ground for suspicioij in the
meantime, that in all this there is butlittl^ honest
advocacy. He who loses sight of /the only true
and useful morality, that which leaves a balance
of pleasure as its results— he who seems rather
desirous of leading a conversation, than of find
ing a rule for action ; he, in a word, who puts
forward, on all occasions, the silly and baneful
fallacy that what is good in theory is bad in
practice ; he is not really entitled to that atten
tion which implies respect, When philosophy is
meant for talk and parade, its absurdities may
serve as decorations ; but if morality be good,

58 DEONTOLOGY.

and if happiness be good, no nonsense will make
them bad. The moral sanction, understood and
developed, will take them under its wing ; and
the common interest will give more and more
efficiency to truth and reason — those great
allies by whose aid it will establish its own
sovereignty.

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 59

CHAPTER IV.

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN — THEIR RELATION TO
GOOD AND EVIL.

EVERY pleasure is prima facie good, and ought
to be pursued. Every pain is prima facie evil,
and ought to be avoided* ''

The fact, that after experience of its enjoy
ment a man pursues a pleasure, is in itself evi
dence of its goodness.

'Every act whereby pleasure is reaped is, all
consequences apart, good.

Every act by which pleasure is reaped, with
out any result of pain, is pure gain to happiness;
\ every act whose results of pain are less than the
results of pleasure, is good, to the extent of the
balance in favour of happiness.'

/ Every person is not only the best, but the
only proper judge of what,_with reference to
himself, is pleasure, and what pain.

To say, that ' If I do this, I shall get no
balance of pleasure, therefore if you do it, you
will get no balance of pleasure,' is mere pre
sumption and folly.

To say, that ' If I do this, I shall get no pre-

60 DEONTOLOGY.

ponderant pleasure ; but if you do this, you may
get a preponderant pleasure, yet it is not proper
you should do it/ is absurdity; and if I apply
evil in any shape to prevent the act, it is injus
tice aud injury ; and if I call in the powers of
government to prevent the act, it is tyranny.

Keeping out of view future contingent conse
quences, the fact of the long continuance of the
free and habitual exercise of any act by an indi
vidual, is evidence that it is productive to him
of pure or preponderant good, and therefore fit
and proper to be pursued ; that is to say, by the
free exercise of the act, it is here implied, that
it is not of a character to be visited by reward
or punishment from any extraneous source.

To warrant the assumption that any given act
is an evil one, it is incumbent on him who im-
pbgns it to shew, not only that evil will be the
result of it, but that the sum of evil will be
greater than the sum of good which it produces.

If, by misrepresentation of consequences, or
erroneous reasoning, and still more by fear of
punishment, whether physical, popular or moral,
political or religious, a man is prohibited from
the enjoyment of any pleasure, an injury is
inflicted on him, equal in amount to the balance
of pleasure of which he is deprived.

The amount of delinquency of such an injury
will be graduated by the state of the delinquent's

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN'. 61

mind with reference to the consequences of the
act. Absence of evil consciousness will dimi
nish the offence, though it will not diminish the
injury. The offence will be maximized when
the malajides is maximized in the breast of the
offender.

The amount of injury done by the inhibition
of a pleasure v/hich might have been enjoyed, is
equal to the infliction of a pain to a similar
amount, which otherwise would not have been
suffered.

/Penal legislation throws its protection over
property, solely on the ground that property is
an instrument for the attainment of pleasure or
the avoidance of pajjoJ Except where pleasure
and pain are concerned, legislation is wasted.

If, -by erroneous reasoning, another man is
debarred of pleasure, there is no sufficient reason
for visiting the erroneous reasoner with punish
ment, for erroneous reasoning is best met and
most successfully extinguished by sound reason
ing : and it is not by punishment, or the fear of
punishment, that its erroneousness can be proved
and exposed. ! In proportion to the erroneous-
ness of an opinion will be the demand for punish
ment in its support ; and there can be no more
presumptively conclusive evidence of the erro
neousness of an opinion than that it should

62 DEONTOLOGY.

employ, or seek to employ, punishment as its
auxiliary.

He who, for the purpose of obtaining wealth,
reputation, or power for himself, endeavours to
debar others from those acts which leave a pre
ponderance of enjoyment to them, resembles the
man who, in an upper story, should with one
hand be piling guineas, and with the other be
flinging nuisances on the heads of passengers be
low. And he who, on the subject of morals, deals
out at random, without any specific reasons, his
' ought/ and his * ought not/ may be properly
compared to the careless housemaid, who emp
ties her receiving-pail from a chamber-window,
indifferent to all who may chance to be going

by.

The value of pains and pleasures must be
estimated by their intensity, duration, certainty,
proximity, and extent. Their intensity, dura
tion, proximity, and certainty, respect indivi
duals ; their extent the number of persons under
their influence. The greater amount of any of
these qualities may counterbalance the lesser
amount of any other.

A pleasure or a pain may be fruitful, or bar
ren. A pleasure may be fruitful in pleasures,
or fruitful in pains, or fruitful in both ; and a
pain, on the contrary, may be fruitful in plea-

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 63

sures or pains, or both. It is the province of
Deontology to weigh them, and to draw the rule
of conduct from the result.

The estimate of pain and pleasure, then, must
be made by him who suffers or enjoys the one
or the other. Even the short-sighted and un
reflecting multitude are better satisfied to trust
to their own experience and observation, than
to take the word of they know not whom.

Accordingly, the only way of turning the idea
of pain in this way to any account, is to fix it to
some known species : and it is by this that those
religious teachers who deal most in specific
images and lively portraitures of the pains of
hell, owe that superiority of influence which
they possess over regular divines. The eccle
siastic who, by study and critical research,
should satisfy himself that the language of scrip
ture is metaphorical with regard to the peculiar
character of the future pains of the wicked, ne
cessarily employs, if acting according to his con
viction, a much less efficient instrument of terror
than he who introduces the material sufferings
created by unquenchable fire, and burning
brimstone, and gnawing worms, and all those
objects which most vividly appeal to the
senses.

Even the pleasures with which the more
popular religious instructors embellish the man-

G4 DEONTOLOGY, ,

sions of the blessed, are pleasures of love, which,
though separated in their descriptions from their
earthly basis, fail not, under favour of a certain
confusion of terms and ideas, to draw, secretly
and imperceptibly, much of their force from the
regions of sense. To figure to themselves the
transports of heaven, they aid their conceptions
with associations of transports they have expe
rienced upon earth : transports which, although
seemingly removed from the sexual passions,
could not, for all that, have existed, but for those
sexual passions. A proof of this is, that no
word, such as friendship, which offers to the
mind the affection entirely separated from this
basis, is among those which they have chosen to
dwell on, as the best adapted to the creation of
those lively impressions they design to produce.

In the analysis of pleasures and pains, or rather
in the separation of pleasures and pains into
their different classes or kinds, it may be neces
sary to travel over the ground again which was
laid out in the Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation (Chapter V).

First on the list stand the pleasures and pains
of sense; comprising those of taste, smell, touch,
sound, and sight, those derived from the sexual
organization, from health or indisposition ; the
pleasures of novelty, and the pains of weariness.

Secondly, The pleasures of wealth, whether

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 65

of acquisition or possession ; the corresponding
pains of which, being pains of privation, must
be referred to other heads.

Thirdly, The pleasures of skill, and the pains
of awkwardness.

Fourthly, The pleasures of amity,* and the
pains of enmity.

Fifthly, The pleasures of good reputation, and
the pains of ill repute.

Sixthly, The pleasures of power.

Seventhly, The pleasures of piety, or the re
ligious pleasures, with their contrasted pains;
pleasures derived from the belief of possessing
the favour of the Divine Being, — pains derived
from an apprehension of his disapproval.

Eighthly, The pleasures and the pains of
"sympathy or benevolence.

Ninthly, Those of malevolence.

Tenthly, Those of memory.

Eleventhly, Those of imagination.

Twelfthly, Those of expectation ; and

Lastly, Those of association.

One general class of pains there are which
must be resolved into all the classes of cor
responding pleasures. These are the pains of
privation, — the pains arising from the absence

* The pleasure of love is a mixed pleasure, composed of
the pleasures of amity, superadded to those of sex.
VOL. I. F

06 DEONTOLOGY.

•*-)

of enjoyment.! Some of these vibrate, as it
were, between the regions of pain and pleasure.
Desire, for example, may belong to either ; its
long continuance, without being satisfied, makes
it almost invariably painful. When enjoyment
seems so adjacent, or so certain as to create
assurance, and the expectation of its arrival
suddenly ceases, come the pains of disappoint
ment. When an enjoyment is over, and its re
turn cannot be anticipated, come the pains of
regret. Pains there are grounded on pleasures,
and pleasures grounded on pains — as the plea
sures of relief, when pain ceases or abates. Of
the whole list of pains and pleasures,' two
classes only regard others— they are those of
benevolence and malevolence. All the rest are
self- regarding.

These pleasures and pains — the obtaining the
pleasure, the avoidance of the pain — are the
sole motives of human conduct. To most of
them a phraseology has been adapted, conveying
a bad, an indifferent, and a good sense ; for in
stance, the love of reputation, in a bad sense,
is denominated false honor, pride or vanity ;
in an indifferent sense, ambition, — a word sus
ceptible of interpretation, leaning towards either
virtue of vice ; in a good sense, honor, or the
love of glory : the religious motive takes all
the shades of zeal, piety, devotion, superstition,

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 67

enthusiasm, fanaticism. But, however varied
the phraseology, these motives will be found, it
is believed, to belong to one or other of the
above classes of pains and pleasures.

There are many pleasures and pains which,
though capable of acting, and acting, in fact, as
motives to conduct, have only a remote con
nection with the subject. The pleasure of
novelty, for example, is the anticipation of an
undefined, or only partly defined, enjoyment :
it is the acquisition of a new article of know
ledge; it may even be a sort of pleasurable
disappointment ; it sometimes takes the shape
of a difficulty overcome — the pleasure, and the
cause of the pleasure, it is frequently very dif
ficult to link together.

The pleasure of memory is the pleasure of
power — the power over things which promise
utility, through the medium of ideas. To recall
what we desire to recall, is a sort of triumph
both of the will and the intellect ; for amidst
the strange workings of the human mind, we
frequently seek to recollect what we cannot,
while we recollect what we would not; that
which we most desire to repossess glides away
from our memory, while that which is most
disagreeable to us hangs about it with strong
influence and power. The pleasures of concep
tion or imagination depend, for their connection

68 DEONTOLOGY.

with *vice and virtue, on their subject and
their source.

The susceptibility of any individual to the
influence of pain and pleasure in general, or to
the influence of any particular pain or plea
sure, depends on bodily and intellectual organi
zation — on knowledge — habit— domestic and
social condition— sex, age, climate, government ;
in a word, on circumstances so various and
intricate that, to develope the exact extent and
character of each, is ' perhaps, if not absolutely
the most difficult, at least, one of the most dif
ficult tasks within the compass of moral physi
ology.1* Nor would it repay the toil of follow
ing the investigation into its boundless ramifica
tions, since, after all, every man must be the
best judge of his own sensibilities, and of the
pains and pleasures which act most influentially
upon them. In the penal field such considera
tions are highly important, because the amount
of crime and the quantum of punishment will, to
a great extent, have to be estimated by them.
But, in the Deontological field, a man stands
constantly at his own tribunal — far less fre
quently at that of others.

Into these regions, then, of pain and plea
sure, it is the business of the moralist to bring

* Introduction to Morals and Legislation, p. xlii.

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 6&

all human actions, in order to decide on their
character of propriety or impropriety, vice or
virtue. And, in truth, it will be found on ex
amination that, from the beginning of time, men
have, often imperceptibly, and in spite of them
selves, been applying this utilitarian standard to
their actions, even while they have been boldly
decrying it.

The world has, indeed,, seen men who have
imagined that, by the infliction of misery on
themselves, they were acting wisely and virtu-
ously. But their motives, after all, were the
same as those of the rest of mankind, and they
scourged themselves, or starved themselves, on
the same calculation of a result of happiness.
But they reasoned, that the harvest of future
pleasure was to grow out of the soil of present
pain, and in the anticipation of that harvest —
bountiful and boundless in their eyes — they
found the result of enjoyment. And then
they argued farther, that patience was a virtue,
and courage was a virtue, and that a just being
would find a recompense for their exercise. It
seems not to have occurred to them that the
Divine Being, if just and good, could never de
sire that any happiness should be thrown need
lessly away, or any suffering be uselessly in
flicted. Their asceticism was utilitarianism turned

70 DEONTOLOGY.

upside down ; they imagined they approved of
actions, because those actions brought misery
with them; disapproved of actions, because they
were pregnant with felicity. Perhaps a certain
portion of mystery and difficulty was intention
ally mixed up with their theory. The Divine
Being they worshipped they were unwilling to
invest in attributes of the same character with
those which they could not but call justice and
wisdom, and prudence and benevolence in men ;
for mystery naturally likes to revel in the
regions of imagination. Hence they framed
and fancied other principles of conduct for the
Deity, and amused themselves by setting up
their authority, and exercising their ingenuity
to reconcile the irreconcilable, and prove the
impossible. They introduced impostures, and
called them pleasures, while genuine pleasures
took to themselves wings and flew away from
their frown.

The ascetic principle then is but the misap
plication of the greatest-happiness principle,
while every other standard of morals will be
found to be despotism and egotism. Lord
Shaftesbury's moral sense is but a declaration
that the opinion — the moral sense — of the actor
is the true rule of action. To assume its ex
istence is, after all, but begging the question.

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 71

If men have it, it is well :_but it is their not
having it that makes it necessary to look for it,
or to find something instead of it.

The danger of assuming it as the principle
or originator of right actions, and the adoption of
its pretended decisions, is, that they would
either exclude or interfere with all other princi
ples — the principle of utility itself. Where is
the line to be drawn ? How is the discordance
to be reconciled ? Opposing forces might nega
tive each other. From thenceforward all is in
confusion. Caprice itself is erected into a rule.

Its utter incapacity ever to become practically
serviceable should alone, one would think, be
sufficient to give its patronizers a disgust to it.

Dr Beattie's common sense is a pretension of
the same character, since he would reckon no
common sense a fit standard which differed from
his own. Dr Price's understanding would rebel
against the understanding of the man that was
guided in a career of morals unlike that he was
embarked in ; and so the. whole round of arro
gance may be seen— reason, right reason, na
ture, and nature's law, natural justice, natural
right, natural equity, good order, truth — all are
but the dogmas of men who insist on implicit
obedience to their decrees. \ And, indeed,
nothing can be more flattering to the indolent,
the disingenuous, the domineering spirit which

72 DEONTOLOGY.

lurks, more or less, in all men, than a pretence
for uniting, in one's own person, the characters
of Advocate and Judge.

The moral sense, say some, prompts to gene
rosity, but does it determine what is generous ?
It prompts to justice, but does it determine
what is just?

It can decide no controversy — it can re
concile no difference. Introduce a modern
partizan of the moral sense, and an ancient
Greek, and ask each of them whether actions
Deemed blameless in ancient days, but respect
ing which opinions have now undergone great
change, ought to be tolerated in a community.
By no means, says the modern ; as my moral
sense abhors them, therefore they ought not.
But mine, says the ancient, approves of them ;
therefore they ought/. And there, if the modern
keep his principles and his temper, the matter
must end between them. Upon the ground
of moral sense there is no going one jot further ;
and the result is that the actions in question are
at once laudable and detestable. The modern,
then, as probably he will keep neither his prin
ciples nor his temper, says to the ancient, ' Your
moral sense is nothing to the purpose ; yours is
corrupt, abominable, detestable : all nations cry
out against you/ ' No such thing/ replies the
ancient; 'and if they did, it would be nothing

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 73

to the purpose ; our business was to inquire,
not what people think, but what they ought to
think.' Thereupon the modern kicks the an
cient, or spits in his face ; or, if he is strong
enough, throws him behind the fire. One can
think of no other method that is at once natural
and consistent, of continuing the debate.

If you can persuade them both to take the
principle of utility for their guide, the discourse
will take another turn ; the result will be either
that they will agree, or that if they disagree,
it will be about some facts ; and there is no
occasion for supposing either of them to be so
unreasonable as to be angry with his opponent
for entertaining a different opinion from his own
concerning a matter of fact ; they will separate
with a resolution to make inquiries that tend to
clear up some of the facts, if they are in their
nature capaple of being cleared up to the sa
tisfaction of the inquiring party, or in the
conviction of the impossibility of coming to an
agreement, with the resolution of each acting
up to his own opinion, satisfied, at least in some
degree, with seeing upon what the point of the
dispute turns.

Thus the subject of their disagreement, when
they came to a conclusion, would be certain
facts, and such must be the only conclusion ;

74 DEONTOLOGY.

for such, if they proceeded on the principle
of utility, would all along be the object of
inquiry ; the only object at least that can give
room to imagine a disagreement.

jMen there are who think the cause of truth

betrayed by exposing it to doubt, by making it

the object pf inquiry. Let them say whether

they think an inquiry of this calm and unim-

passioned kind, could possibly end in the

justification of murder, robbery, theft, devas-

tation, malicious mischief, perjury, or any of

those crimes which are generally dreaded as

mortal to the peace of society ? If not, then

either the actions in question are not of the

same malignant nature ; in which case there is

no reason why they should be treated as if they

were, or if they are of the same malignant nature,

the inquiry will show them to be so.

x Though it should be sentiment, and nothing
else but sentiment, that leads men to perform
certain actions which we call virtuous, it must
be something else than sentiment that would
lead a person instructed in all the circumstances
of the case — that is, in the whole sum of its in
fluence on pains and pleasures, to approve of it. .

Disappointed of knowledge, men look for
screens to hide their ignorance.
The moral sense is not pretended to be any

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 75

thing more than a propensity in a man, first, to
do a certain action — and secondly, to approve
of it.

)jBjiL-that propensity in its two shapes may
exist with respect to many actions, which the-
partizans of the moral sense are as ready to
condemn as any one elsew

It is to be hoped that a time is arrived
in which the translation of vague generalities
and of arbitrary assumptions into the simple
language of pains and pleasures, will gradually
banish a phraseology which, more than any
other, tends to cover all questions of vice and
virtue with impenetrable mists. Conduct, for
example, is called unnatural, and therefore it is %^ •
reprobated, and this language is used very fre- r
quently by those who contend that all the natural
tendencies of mankind are towards profligacy ;
but, if the meaning be thoroughly sifted, it will
be found, in many instances, that nothing is in
tended more than that the conduct is unusual or
uncommon. But this of itself predicates neither
vice nor virtue, neither merit nor demerit. The
sublimest acts of virtuous heroism draw their
lustre from their rarity— they may be called un
common, unnatural — is that a ground for repro
bating them ? Far from it./

The word purity, it is proper to add here, is
employed in this work solely in the mathemati-

76 DEONTOLOGY.

cal or arithmetical sense. This is necessary to
be stated, because rhetoric very frequently at
taches a meaning to the word, as it does to
many others, which can only engender confused
or mischievous ideas.

A pleasure is considered pure, in the degree in
which it is unaccompanied by counterbalancing
pains — a pain is pure, in the proportion in
which it is unaccompanied by counterbalancing
pleasures.

In the amount of well-being, purity and im
purity are what profit and loss are in the com
mercial balance. Purity is profit, impurity loss.
A pleasure, preponderantly impure, corresponds
• . to the case of a money account, when the
balance is on the side of loss. A pain, pre
ponderantly impure, corresponds to an account,
when the balance is on the side of profit.
In medical practice, in domestic rule, in politi
cal government, when, for its purpose of good,
pain is produced, it is produced with the design
and endeavour that it shall be as impure as
possible.

The original idea of purity ,is the absence of
every other substance from the substance to
which the attribute is meant to apply. What
ever is different or foreign brings with it im
purity. Water, for instance, employed for
drink, or in the preparation of food, is liable to

OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 77

be combined with a variety of substances, many
of which would render it less fit, and some
more fit for these purposes. Its purity will
then be in proportion to their absence. Flour
would be rendered impure by a mixture of coal
dust, and coals would lose their purity by being
mingled with flour or hair powder. The quality
of unwholesomeness or offensiveness, whether
to the senses or the imagination, adds to the in
tensity which is ascribed to the impurity.

78 DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER V.

.

OF WELL-BEING AND ILL-BEING.

IT is desirable, it is even necessary, that some
word should be found to represent the balance
of a man's pains and pleasures, as spread over
any considerable portion of his existence.

Well-being will fitly denote the balance in
favour of pleasure. Ill-being the balance, if in
favour of pain.

The word happiness is not always appropriate.
It represents pleasure in too elevated a shape ;
it seems associated with the idea of enjoyment
in its superlative degree.

Comparatively speaking, there are few who
would not admit that they had, in their progress
through life, enjoyed a portion, more or less con
siderable, of well-being. Much fewer, perhaps
none, would admit the enjoyment of happiness.

The quantity of well-being depends on gene
ral sensibility, — its quality upon particular sen
sibility, the being more alive to pleasure and
pain from some sources than from others.

But by competent attention and observation
every man will be best acquainted with the

OF WELL-BEING AND ILL-BEING. 79

character of his own sensibilities. By counte
nance, gesture, deportment, contemporaneous
.or subsequent conduct, he may give indications
to others ; but no evidence will be so complete,
no testimony so direct, as that of his own feel
ings : thence it follows that, with the benefit of
experience, every man is a more competent
judge of what is instrumental to his own well-
being than any other man ; and hence it would
be absurd to prescribe the same line of conduct
to be invariably observed on the same occasions,
without any reference to the particular sensibi
lities of the party concerned.

Taking the whole of mankind together, on
which side of the account does the balance lie?
Beyond dispute, it is on the side of well-being ;
of well-being existence is in itself a conclusive
proof, for small is the quantity of pain at the
expense of which existence may be terminated.

True it is, and melancholy as true, that the
name of religion has been employed to introduce
an Almighty being, whose delight is in human
misery. Men have been found, who, shutting,
their eyes to all thk evidence around them — the
unbounded evidence of goodness and of power —
have introduced final misery — hopeless, limit
less, interminable misery, as the consummation
of his awful dispensations. The dreadful dogma
is not to be found in Christianity, It is a most

80 DEONTOLOGY.

vain, most pernicious, most groundless conceit:
The Christain Scripture lies open to every eye.
In Ho one part of it -is intimation given of any
such doom.f

The unfrequency of suicide is irresistible tes
timony to the fact that life is, on the whole, a
blessing. And though the popular and sympa
thetic sanction bear strongly upon the question,
it cannot be said that suicide is forbidden by
Jesus Christ. His own example, indeed shews
that, at all events, a possible case of justification
may exist ; for possessing, as he possessed, the
power of exempting himself from death, he
spontaneously subjected himself to it.

Maupertuis, however, tells us that the balance
of pains and pleasures is on the ill-being side.
Horace's Qui fit, M&cenas, or something like it,
is the burthen of his strain. Man desires to
better his condition ; to acquire, for the future,
something not possessed by the present. Well !
and what does this prove? Why, that to the
balance already existing in favour of well-being,
there exists in the breast of every man one ele
ment more of well-being, the pleasure of expec
tation, the pleasure of hope. But no, it may
be said ; it is not for the increase of a balance on
the side of pleasure that a man looks forward,
and labours for a change of condition ; it is for
the.diminution of a balance on the side of pain.

OF WELL-BEING AND ILL-BEING. 81

Among those whom Horace had in view, this, at
any rate, could not have been the case. For
among them suicide was not regarded with
horror, but with the highest praise and admi
ration.

' Sit Cato, dum vivit, sank vel Ceesare major
Dum moritur, numquid major Otbone fuit?'

MARTIAL, vi. 32.

By an ill-considered expression, Locke, a man
worth a hundred Maupertuises, has given coun
tenance to a most false, uncomfortable, and per
nicious sentiment. He says that every action
has its source in uneasiness. If this be true,
uneasiness is the necessary accompaniment of
action ; and a man, as often as he acts, and as
long as he acts, must be ill at ease. But what
is the feeling which Locke calls uneasiness? It
is anything but a painful one. It is the sense,
the presentiment of a capacity for enjoying, at
some future time, a pleasure not then present.
Pleasure may be springing from' a thousand
sources, while anticipation is looking to the
opening of many more. The present may be
bright' with enjoyment, while the door of a
brighter future is unlocked; and to the pleasures
of possession may be associated the pleasures
of hope.

If Johnson were to be believed, every man is
occupied with the thoughts of dinner till dinner

VOL. i. G

82 DEONTOLOGY.

comes. And according to Locke, every man
who is not at dinner is uneasy for the want of
it. Every moment not employed in eating must
be a moment of uneasiness. Yet this is not
true: it was not true even of Johnson himself.
Beyond every thing else Johnson loved his din
ner; but, thinking thus amorously of his dinner,
what prevented him from sitting with his Titsey
on his knee, with a nosegay under his nose,
another Titsey at the harpsichord, enchanting
him with a song, and the work of a favourite
Author in his right hand ?

END OP ACTION. 83

CHAPTER VI.

END OF ACTION,

IF the balance of pleasure be really the intense,
constant, and sole object of pursuit,-^-if it must
always continue to be so, from the very consti
tution of our natures, — if there is no occasion in
which it ceases to be so, — for what object, may
it not be asked, for what end is this or any other
discourse on the subject of Ethics ? Why urge
a man to pursue that which he is always occu
pied in pursuing ?

But the position is denied; for where, if the
position be true, where, cries an objector, where
is sympathy? where is benevolence? where is
beneficence? Answer, exactly where they were.

To deny the existence of the social affections
would be to deny the evidence of all experience.
Scarcely in the most brutal savage would they
be found altogether wanting.

But the pleasure I feel in bestowing pleasure
on my friend, whose pleasure is it but mine ?
The pain I feel at seeing my friend oppressed
by pain, whose pain is it but mine ? And if I

84 DEONTOLOGY. ;

felt no pleasure, or felt no pain, where, where
would be niy sympathy ?

Why, it is asked again, waste time in enforc
ing conduct which every man, on every occa
sion, adopts for himself, — namely, the pursuit
of good ?

Because, consideration will enable him more
correctly to estimate what conduct will leave
the greatest results of good ; for though, under
immediate impressions, he might be disposed to
pursue a particular course for the purpose of
securing his well-being, a calmer, a more com
prehensive view might show him that the course
would not, on the whole, be the best and wisest;
because he would sometimes discover that the
•nearer good would be outveighed by remoter,
but associated evil, or that a greater pleasure
might be obtained, in time to come, for a lesser
pleasure abandoned now.

Because, it might happen that the act which
promises the present pleasure might prove pre
judicial to others in the society to which you
belong, and they, having sustained an injury at
your hands, would, were it prompted by self,
preservation alone, seek to avenge themselves,
by the infliction of pain, equal, or greater in
amount than the pleasure enjoyed.

And again, the act under contemplation might

END OF ACTION. 85

possibly be productive of displeasure in the
breasts of the community at large, and the loss of
their good opinion, consequent on the act, might
outweigh in value the pleasure it produced.

Yet it may be said, a man's well-being ought
not to be the object of his pursuit. This ought,
like other oughts, is a mere covering for despotic,
unsupported assertion, and only means that the
objector thinks a man's well-being ought not to
occupy his attention. The argument is just
where it was ; it is all the stronger, if nothing can
be brought upon it but dogmatical assumption.
The objection is at best only the declaration of an
opinion; and a declaration, without a reason,
leaves matters pretty much as it found them.

Illuminated by the Deontological principle,
the field of action will assume a new appearance.
The parade of wisdom, the solemn mootings,
the curious distinctions, the cobweb reasonings,
the scornful dogmas of intolerance and ignorance,
/will vanish into nothing. Stripped of the mys
teries and perplexities with which casuists and
churchmen have involved the standard of duty,
it will be found of daily use and daily comfort.
Vague and declamatory generalities will lose
their power, and become, as they are, fit objects
of ridicule and lamentation: ridicule, considered
in themselves ; lamentation, when considered in
their consequences.

,

86 DEONTOLOGY.

The understanding and the will are alike
operative on the ends of action. The will or the
intention of every man is directed to the obtain-
ment of his well-being. Deontology is called
upon to enlighten the understanding, so that it
may guide the will in its pursuit of happiness,
by furnishing the most efficient means. The
will has always the end in view ; it is for the
understanding to correct the aberrations of the
will, where the will employs other than the
fittest instruments. The repetition of acts,
whether positive or negative ; that is, acts of
commission or abstention, having for their ob
ject the production of the greatest accessible
balance of pleasure, and being judiciously di
rected to that end, constitutes habitual virtue.

SANCTIONS. 87

CHAPTER VII.

SANCTIONS.

Respicejinem. The end of action being de
fined, that end must be steadily kept in view,
and no inquiry can be more important than as
to the most efficient means of promoting that
end. Those means present themselves in the
shape of the inducements which operate on con-
duct.j, They .bring conduct and its consequences
into the regions of hopes and fears — of hopes
which present a balance of pleasure, of fears
which anticipate a balance of pain. These
inducements may be conveniently called sanc
tions.

The strength of a temptation to a misdeed is
in the ratio of the excess of the pleasure of the
misdeed (as it stands in the idea of the person
tempted) above the intensity of the pain which
is to follow, compounded with its apparent
proximity and probability.

Sanctions, as has been said, are inducements
to action. They suppose the existence of temp
tations. Temptations are the evil ; sanctions
the remedy. But neither are sanctions nor

88 DEONTOLOGY.

temptations any thing but pains and pleasures,
acting singly in the case of temptations, acting
as sanctions in groups.

But in order that a sanction should exercise
its influence, it is not necessary that a man
should be.conscious of the existence of the in
ducement.! Balaam was stopped by the power
of an angel that was invisible to him.

Cases there are where necessity is and must
be admitted as an excuse for conduct ; cases
which are thus taken out of the ordinary rules.
This excuse, when thoroughly sifted, will be
found to be a confession of the inefficiency of
punishment to prevent such conduct. The in
efficiency of punishment has been seldom alleged
by moralists or legislators as the reason why
certain actions cannot be controlled ; but it is the
only true and tenable ground; it it the real, but
unperceived cause of the influence of necessity.
Why, in such a case, did a man decide on a
given action ? He felt a repugnancy to doing
otherwise ; he could not resist the despotism of
the repugnancy ; he could not even explain its
cause — a common case. What then ? No pu
nishment was near enough and great enough to
restrain him.

Sanctions are arrangeable according to their
nature, or according to their sources. Accord
ing to their nature, they are either punitory by

SANCTIONS. 89

pain or loss of pleasure, or remunatory by plea
sure or exemption from pain. They are divis-
able into the physical, the social, the moral, the
political, and the religious./ From all these
sources proceed both penalties and recompenses,
both pains and pleasures.

1. The physical sanction concerns a man's per
son physically and psychologically considered,
as experienced in the pains and pleasures affect
ing the body. It is derived from the physical
construction of man in general, and will be
modified by the peculiar sensibilities of the
individual. Generally speaking, the physical
sanction may be considered as that influence
growing out of the ordinary course of things,
which is brought to bear upon any action or
actions, without reference to the will of others.
It is that influence which is independent of mo
tives derived from sources foreign to the indivi
dual : it is the sanction which would exist, in
all its force, if a man were isolated from the
world, if he had no communion with his fellow-
men, and no belief in the superintendence of
Providence. It represents those pains and plea
sures which do not directly emanate from his
social, political, or religious position ; though it
is the ground-work of the power of all other
inducements, for it is only by their influence on
man's physical organization, only by their power

90 DEONTOLOGY.

of producing suffering or enjoyment in the indi
vidual, that they can become motives to action.
2. The social or sympathetic sanction is. that
which grows out of a man's personal or domestic
relations ; it is a sort of mixture of the selfish
with the social regard. To some extent its judg~
ment is created by his own influences ; it is the
application to himself of that domestic code of
which he has been one of the framers. If he be
a father, his children will, in the ratio of their
respect for his opinions and practice, recognize
his authority, and adopt his standard of right
and wrong. The domestic sanction may be
more or less efficient, more or less enlightened
than the popular sanction : its operation is more
direct and immediate than the popular can be,
in as far as a man's happiness, for the most part,
depends more on those who are near him, habi
tually or frequently, than upon those who are
remote. The social and the popular sanction
act and re-act upon each other; the popular
sanction being, in fact, the great recipient of
all the social sanctions.

3. The moral or popular sanction is that
which is commonly called public opinion ; it is
the received decision of society on conduct. The
popular sanction may be divided into twp
branches — the democratic and aristocratic—
awarding a very different portion of recompense

SANCTIONS. 91

or punishment to acts of a similar character.
A sanction, by every instance of its execution,
constitutes and gives effect to a law ; and the laws
constituted by the aristocratic branch are over
a great portion of the field of conduct, in repug
nance to those constituted by the democratic.
In misdeeds affecting persons, for example, the
democratic sanction tolerates boxing, the trying
to hurt; not duelling, trying to kill : while the
aristocratic tolerates and rewards trying to kill.
Of misdeeds affecting property, the democratic
sanction gives preference to the debts due to a
tradesman over those due to a gamester ; the
aristocratic sanction decides directly the reverse :
the democratic sanction punishes swindling in
all its shapes ; the aristocratic rewards it in the
case and situation of a man of landed and
entailed estate./ In the democratic scale of
reprobation, the mischievous stands above the
ridiculous; in the aristocratic, the ridiculous
above the mischievous. The democratic refers,
or is at least constantly tending, more and more,
to refer every thing to the standard of utility,
to the greatest-happiness principle ; the aristo-
cratical, as much, as far, and as long as possible,
to the standard of taste, — constituting itself the
arbiter of taste.

Among the pleasures and pains growing out
of the moral or popular sanction, and exercising

92 DEONTOLOGY.

a vast influence on virtue and vice, and thence
on happiness and misery, are a group of facti
tious entities, which demand attention. Repu
tation, honour, renown, fame, glory, and dignity,
may serve as a sample of them./ They have this
in common, that they are, though factitious, the
objects of possession. They are distinguished
from other objects of possession in this, that

i pursuit of them, to any extent, is not deemed

improper, j The love of money, every one admits,

may be carried to excess, but not so the pursuit

of these attractions.

^Eut in the mistakes made respecting them,

(jn the eulogiums poured on those who pursue
and those who possess them, will be found one
of the most fruitful sources of improbity and
mischief.j The means a man has at his disposal
he will employ, not only to keep that which he
possesses, but to obtain that which he desires.
These possessions are the instruments of influ
ence, and that influence is liable to be baneful,
according to its extent. The mischief is at its
minimum where confined to an individual ; it
is at its maximum when it operates on a
national or international field.

Applied to private life, the principal mischief
of which any of these appellatives is likely to
be productive, is danger to life from dueUingTi
The good proposed is the repression of offensive

SANCTIONS. 93

deportment; a good obtainable, much more
effectually obtainable, by less expensive means;
but there is this good to set against the balance
of evil.

(^But applied to national and international con
cerns, they become incentives to misrule, in the
shape of usurpation of power ; and to war,/ that
is, to ravage, rapine, and destruction, on the
largest scale. And the amount of evil will
depend on the amount of influence exercised
by him who puts these elements of misery into
action.

Suppose him to be a sovereign: his domain
of action is national or international. If it is
at the expense of his own subjects that he seeks
this honour, glory, fame, dignity, and so forth,
the mischief to which the language in question
leads is, invasion of popular rights ; in case of
non-resistance, oppression and misrule ; and in
case of resistance, civil war. If it is at the
expense of other nations that he seeks these
distinctions, then comes foreign war, which,
being interpreted, is murder, rape, devastation,
on a vast scale, at the expense both of his own
subjects and those of the foreign state.

Though of this all-comprehensive mass of
wretchedness and profligacy a sovereign alone
cannot be the actual perpetrator, yet, as an
instigator before the fact, every subject may

94 DEONTOLOGY.

operate influentially, according to his position.
An official cabinet counsellor, a member of a
popular assembly, a member of an unofficial
association, a writer in a public newspaper, each
in his different sphere.

The quantity of these influences which a
sovereign may hold will be in proportion to the
quantity of power he possesses ; the power which
he and his subjects possess with reference to
other nations— the power which he himself pos
sesses with reference to the nation to which he
belongs. Now the desire to possess these ac
quirements being boundless, the efforts to obtain
them become boundless too. Hence foreign
conquest, aggression, usurpation ; depredation
at home, depredation abroad, and acts which, if
committed by unofficial hands, would bear the
name, and be visited with the punishment of
crimes, are unchecked in their misery-creating
career.

That instances may be found in which power
will not have been abused, but have been em
ployed for the public good, is most true: where,
for example, it has been used for the establish
ment of wise laws at home, or the maintenance
and manifestation of the virtues of justice
abroad.

But these cases are rare ; and rarer still are
the cases where glory, fame, and these other

SANCTIONS. 95

brilliant possessions, have been sought or ac
quired from such a beneficent source. Rarely,
indeed, that honor and renown are spoken of
but in connection with murderous or mischievous
deeds. The reputation acquired by benevo
lence shrinks into absolute insignificance when
compared with that which abominable and atro
cious enterprises have obtained for monarchs.

What is to be done? What, in the melancholy
case, where of these gorgeous things so little is
to be had by innoxious means, so much by
flagitious means ? What, but to present the
portraits of vice and virtue in their contrasted
hideousness and beauty ? What, but to paint
in their true colors those malefactors, in com
parison of whom a common incendiary is as
much inferior in the scale of mischievousness,
as a small quantity of mischief, in one shape, is
inferior to the greatest quantity of mischief, in
all shapes, capable of being perpetrated by
foreign or domestic war.

It may be said that these tinsel baubles are,
in fact, all made subservient to interest—to
national interest. Not so ! for those who preach
up their value disclaim the vulgar and the sordid
dream of interest. What declaimer would ever
talk about giving up renown to interest? of
sacrificing honor to prudence ? Fling down
the substance to catch the shadow, cast away

Of) DEONTOLOGY.

the real, in order to possess the imaginative ;
in this you have the clamour of patriotism and
nationality.

Not but that national interest might be more
undeviatingly and unexceptionably pursued,
without danger to probity or prudence, than
private interest. By acquisition of territory
private interest may be increased — not so the
public interest— not by conquest, not by colo
nization; the interest of the ruling few, un
doubtedly, may be served, but not that of the
subject many.

Strange it is, that the misery produced by
those influences which have been described,
misery on so vast a scale, of such intensity and
such duration, should be looked on, for the most
part, with the composure of indifference or the
excitement of admiration; Sand yet more strange,
that such composure and such admiration should
sometimes flow from minds who would visit
acts, or even thoughts which do no mischief,
with unbridled abhorrence, popular punishment,
or even penal visitation.

The popular sanction assumes very various
names. For instance, an author, describing the
fortitude of the American Indians under torture,
says —

' The constancy of the sufferers in this terrible
scene shows the wonderful power of institutions

SANCTIONS. 97

and a thirst of glory, which makes men imitate
and exceed what philosophy, or even religion can
effect.'*

Philosophy is here nothing but the force of
the popular sanction, applied in a peculiar man
ner. It must mean the desire of appearing a
philosopher, and thus acquiring or preserving
the respect attached to that character. It cannot
mean the art of correctly calculating pains and
pleasures, for that would not, on such an oc
casion, dictate exertions of heroism under a
pain known to be at once transient and unmi-
tigable.

The moral sanction owes its highest efficiency
1 to the progress of intelligence.

In a state of barbarism, men are governed in
every thing by sudden impulse, and in nothing
by reflection. The experience of preceding is
lost to the succeeding ages. The moral sanc
tion has, then, just influence enough to give
credit to the virtue of courage, a virtue of prime
necessity, that opens itself a passage to the
hearts of men. The virtues of veracity and
integrity come afterwards. Last of all comes
that of toleration.

Hence a universal rule may be deduced —
that the more enlightened the body of a nation,

* European Settlements in America; vi, p. 200.
VOL. I. H

98 DEONTOLOGY.

the stronger is the influence of the moral sanc
tion.

The case of the Romans is no exception.
Virtue, it is said, characterized the infancy of
that state ; depravity the decline. Yet was it
more enlightened at the latter of those periods
than at the former.

To this it may be answered, in the first
place, that the body of the people could never
be said to have been enlightened, even at the
last. Literature was copious, but not diffused.
Works were many, but copies of them were
few,

In the next place, the depravity which strikes
so much in the history of the declension of the
Roman state was not the depravity of private
life, but of a few public men, corrupted by the
abuse and evil adjustment of the political sanc
tion. The influence of the moral sanction is not
traceable in the mutilated and imperfect portraits
of the times that are handed down to us.

Examples enough have reached us to shew
that the little virtue there was in the early
ages of that state was more owing to the
influence of the political sanction than the mo
ral. The political sanction was so disposed
as to produce a certain portion of public virtue,
at the very time that private virtue was at as
low an ebb us can be conceived. Witness the

SANCTIONS. 90

poisoning mentioned by Livy. From that same
account, it appears that private depravity did not
become an object of notice till it had arisen to
such a height as to shake the very existence of
the state.

The popular sanction, when enlightened by
Deontological principle, corrects the aberrations
of individual judgment, and takes the wrong
doer out of those regions where the interests
and passions of the sufferer make vengeance,
not justice, the grounds of his award. Ven
geance cannot be allowed to be the end of
punishment; for if vengeance be the end, the
resentment of the person whose vengeance it is,
must be the measure ; there is no other. But
the resentment of any man against an act mis
chievous to society is sometimes greater, some
times less, than in proportion to that mischie-
vousness. It will sometimes be bestowed on
acts not mischievous. It is different in different
men ; it is different in the same man ; nor in
either case, otherwise than from the principle
of utility, can any rules bejaid down, or expe
dients devised to bring it to a level.

At one time greater punishment will be in
flicted than is necessary for the determent of
the offender ; so that a portion of happiness will
be destroyed in waste. At another time, not
so much punishment will be inflicted as is
necessary for that purpose ; so that the punish-

100 DEONTOLOGY.

ment will be inflicted, and the mischief still
continue.

Those who have the dispensing of the moral
sanction are contented with less proofs than it
is necessary for those to require who have
the dispensing of the political sanction. The
proofs which the nature of the act furnishes
they can more easily come at. For a construc
tion to put upon a single act, they call up the
whole series of actions in a man's life. They
examine all witnesses, competent and incom
petent.

It were to be wished that every man's name
were written upon his forehead as well as
engraved upon his door. It were to be wished
that no such thing as secrecy existed — that
every man's house were made of glass. There
would be the less reason to desire windows to
his breast. Actions are a tolerably adequate
interpretation of sentiments, when observation
has furnished us with the key.

The more men live in public, the more amen
able they are to the moral sanction. The greater
dependence men are in to the public, that is,
the more equality there is among them, the
clearer the evidence comes out, the more it has
of certainty in its results. The liberty of the
press throws all men into the public presence.
The liberty of the press is the greatest co
adjutor of the moral sanction. Under such

SANCTIONS. 101

influence, it were strange if men grew not every
day rqore virtuous than on the former day.
I am satisfied they do. I am satisfied they will
continue so to do, till, if ever, their nature shall
have arrived at its perfection. Shall they stop?
shall they turn back ? The rivers shall as soon
make a wall, or roll up the mountains to their
source./

There is but one thing, and that far out of the
sphere of probability, that can arrest the tide of
improvement. It is a sudden and universal
over-ruling of these moral influences by phy
sical necessity.

A whole kingdom, the great globe itself, will
become a gymnasium, in which every man exer
cises himself before the eyes of every other man.
Every gesture, every turn of limb or feature, in
those whose motions have a visible influence
on the general happiness, will be noticed and
marked down.

The constitution of the human mind being
opened by degrees, the labyrinth is explored, a
clue is found out for it. That clue is the influence
of interest ; of interest, not in that partial and
sordid sense in which it is the tyrant of sordid
souls, but in the enlarged and beneficent sense
in which it is the common master of all spirits,
and especially of the enlightened. It is put into
the hands of every man. The designs by which

102 DEONTOLOGY.

short-sighted iniquity would mask its projects,
are every day laid open. There will be no
moral enigmas by and byj

^WJia- knows but even I, an instrument so
mean as I, may be found to have done something
towards a work so glorious, and this my prophecy
itself, like so many others, be in a certain
degree the cause of its own completion?

4. The political, or legal sanction. It has
two branches, the judicial and the administra
tive. The judicial acting almost exclusively
\*y punishments, the administrative mostly by
rewards. This sanction becomes law, and is
called into operation upon all those acts which
legislation makes penal, or those which legisla
tion deems worthy of public recompense. In
other words, the political sanction belongs to
those vices which, being deemed misdemeanors
or crimes, are taken cognizance of by the official
authorities, as meet subjects for penal visitation,
or to those virtues which are marked out for
state reward. It is the legislator, rather than
the moralist, who is armed with the political
sanction ; but it was necessary to mention it as
one of the sources of action.

Scandal is to the moral sanction what perjury
is to the political,

5. .The religious or superhuman sanction. It
has two principal sources of influence, which,

SANCTIONS. J03

when they can be brought to bear upon human
action, necessarily invest the sanction with high
authority and power. For, first, it supposes the
Divine Being to be thoroughly cognizant of the
existence of every misdeed in question; and,
secondly, to have perfect knowledge of the exact
quantity and quality of its malignity, from the
knowledge of all the aggravating and extenuat
ing circumstances. Thence all those chances
of escape from observation or from punishment,
which diminish the efficiency of the other sanc
tions, are removed from this, which at once
brings the offender into the presence of an all-
seeing, all-knowing, all- weighing, and equitably-
awarding judge.]

To teachers of religion, however, it belongs
to treat of the pains and pleasures which reli
gion holds out for those acts of forbearance or
of indulgence which it prescribes or forbids.
It is for the Deontologist to inquire how far
they accomplish all the ends which morality
proposes, to endeavour to ascertain the causes
of their inefficiency, when they are inefficient,
and to bring his instruments to cultivate that
part of the field of thought and action which
they have left barren. And it is to be hoped
that, while thus labouring with the teachers of
religion in the service of virtue and the pursuit
of happiness, the Deontologist will be consi-

104 DEONTOLOGY.

clered, not as a rival to be supplanted, but as
a coadjutor to be loved. The beneficent influ
ences of the religious sanction cannot but be
strengthened by calling in every other sanction
to its aid. Its inefficiency has been often the
subject of lamentation, even among those who
would fain arm it with its greatest power. To
friendly auxiliaries it cannot then be hostile.

•And if any religious opinions are unfriendly
to human happiness, surely that circumstance
must be taken as evidence of their erroneous-
ness. The province of true religion can never
be to seal up the fountains of felicity, or to open
those of misery.

If a man is less happy than he might be, it is
no matter whether he is made so by others'
acts, or by his own opinions : a religion, there
fore, would carry the same evidence of its false
hood in its opposing that share of happiness
which a man might otherwise acquire for him
self, as by favouring or conniving at that share
of unhappiness which he may suffer at the
hands of another.

If there were no other ill effects attendant on
superstition, or the misdirected religious sanc
tion, this consideration alone would prove it to
be one of the bitterest rods mankind were ever
scourged with, that, by bestowing the denomi
nation of offences on acts indifferent to the

SANCTIONS. 105

happiness of society, it creates new and artificial
crimes, it introduces among men fresh occasions
of division and disgust : thus adding to the but
too numerous ones which must ever subsist. It
weakens the horror due to real crimes, by
spending it upon nominal ones. It confounds
men's ideas of right and wrong ; they discover
the emptiness of those denominations, as applied
to many subjects, and become disposed to con
sider them alike indifferent, as applied to all.

If it had not been for a slight tincture, at
least, of superstition yet remaining, there could
not have appeared a work with the title of
* Private Vices Public Benefits.'

One might fill a book with the testimonies
given by divines, of the necessity of strengthen
ing that sanction, the influence of which it is
their province to superintend, with sanctions
borrowed from other sources. jLopk at the
examples of Louis XI, Philip if, and Muley
Ishmael, all three prodigies of devotion and
monsters of depravity. And, whatever may
have been the case with the Moorish Emperor,
the French and Spanish tyrants were devoted
to a religion which, whatever duties it may pre
scribe besides, professes to prescribe all those
which are demanded by the established religion
of our own country. Theirs, like ours, was a com
pound of moral duties, useful to be observed ;

106 DEONTOLOGY.

of moral duties, useless ; of ceremonies to be
performed ; and of dogmas to be believed. I In
theirs, indeed, the useless duties, the ceremo
nies, and the points of faith, bore a much larger
proportion to the useful duties than in ours;
accordingly it is not for ours, nor, it may be
confidently hoped, ever will be, to produce
examples of a depravity so enormous.

Every instruction which contributes to
strengthen the attachment to the three last of
these classes of observances, contributes to
weaken the attachment to the first of them.
They are three branches in a lever, on the same
side of the fulcrum, contending against one on
the other side : the elevation of any of the three
is the depression of that one.
^ Tcuwhat is the inefficiency of the religious
sanction to be attributed ? for if its power be as
it is represented, it ought to be the most influ
ential of instruments, inasmuch asjnfinite is
greater than finite, and the pains and pleasures
it proposes are intense and permanent beyond
all others; and let it be said, once for all, that
it is not intended here to supersede its authority,
but merely to supply auxiliaries which may add
to its beneficial influence. [The enjoyments and
sufferings of a future life being inaccessible to
experience, whether our own or that of others,
no man having hitherto reported, for the infor-

SANCTIONS. 107

mation of his fellows, what had happened to
him beyond the grave, and no man having
hitherto learned it for himself, |thgsa enjoyments
and sufferings represent nothing which our ex
perience has shown to be either pleasurable or
painful. Being remote as to distance, uncer
tain and unimrnediate as to their contingency on
any particular action, undefined as to their cha
racter, and invisible in their operation, it is not
to be wondered at that they so often lose their
power in the presence of adjacent, certain,
palpable influences*; Events placed so far be
yond the limits of life and knowledge are not, it
must be admitted, susceptible of being brought
into the mind with the vividness of that which
is propinquous. ^As in receding from the lof
tiest and sublimest objects, however substantial,
they gradually diminish, till they are lost in the
increasing distance ; so the tremendous hopes
and fears with which it is the province of reli
gion to agitate us, fail in their influence, and
become obscured in the remoteness of eternity.!
The religious sanction would be greatly
strengthened by the belief in a particular Pro
vidence, a belief often asserted and insisted on,
but which appears to operate little even upon
those who proclaim it. Did the sanction exist,
were there the constant interference of the
Divine Being to punish or reward, appropriately,
acts of vice or virtue, it is clear that all human

108 DEONTOLOGY,

legislation would be supererogatory and intru
sive; pernicious on all occasions where not
useless ; useless on all occasions where not
pernicious. The belief in a particular Providence
would make the religious sanction present, but
no one has sufficient confidence in the belief to
deliver society over to its solitary influences.

Another main quality on which the effect of a
punishment depends is its celerity, (JNo man
ever thrusts his hand into the fire. Why?
Because the suffering follows instantaneously
upon the act,

IThere are certain consequences which follow
almost as certainly the acts calculated to produce
them, as the pain of burning from thrusting the
hand into the fire. Yet these acts are committed.
Why ? Because the penal consequence is
distant. \

(Delay gives room for obstacles to intervene.
Apparent diminution of certainty therefore follows
necessarily from abatement of celerity.

And in the interval a man takes the chance
of death, which removes him from the penal
visitation.

Pity, too, has more time to operate, to pre
vent or mitigate the punishment. And pity
destroys a proportion of its effect.

The religious sanction is eminently deficient
in the article of celerity.

Locke does not hesitate to allow the inefficacy

SANCTIONS. 109

of the religious sanction. And he partly gives
the reasons of it. Men do not, in fact, give
heed to it, he says, so as to determine their
conduct by it : and it is their nature not to do
so. And yet they ought, he says, and their not
doing so is folly. For did they but duly reflect,
they would find that, in every instance of trans
gression, the punishment, after all abatements,
must be greater, and that in any given propor
tion, than the profit of the crime. For the stores
of divine justice being supposed infinite, God
can, and it is to be supposed, will, inflict as
much, in the amount of intensity and duration,
as shall suffice to make up the deficiency,
whatsoever it may be, in the other elements of
its momentum.

He does not consider that it is the apparent
value of a future pain, and not the real value,
that constitutes the momentum of it in the
mind ; and that Luo— addition in quantity can
make up for the diminution which uncertainty,
distance, and delay produce. It is the belief,
and not the reality of punishment, that operates
beneficially ; and the strength of the political
sanction consists in this — that the constant pre
sence of the reality induces the belief, and makes
that belief influential.

From these and similar considerations, or
rather, perhaps, from some obscure preconcep-

110 DEONTOLOGY.

tion of their bearings, and to clear themselves
from the embarrassment growing out of the un
doubted inefficacy of the religious sanction when
standing alone, some divines (Dr Price, for
example) have supposed punishment to be due
to guilt, i.e. past guilt, not as a means of pre
venting guilt, i.e. future guilt of the same kind ;
but, as it were, of congruity. This congruity,
when it comes to be examined into, is no more
than a disposition in these divines to believe or
to declare that such punishment ought to be
consequent upon such guilt. For this arrange
ment, in which neither wisdom nor benevolence
can have been consulted, they attempt not so
much as to assign any grounds. Why should
they? The punishment will, and ought to en
sue ; not for any use there is for it, but because
they say so. And the demonstration of their
proposition is to be found in their own infallibi
lity. They are disposed', they cannot tell why,
nor will they condescend to inquire why, that
is, to what end, or for what purpose ; but, how
ever, as it happens, they are disposed to believe
as much, and therefore it must be so. This
stout ignorance, and resolute rejection of the
means of knowledge, namely, inquiry and argu
ment, being better and surer, it seems, than
knowledge, is to supersede it and take its name.
As to the party himself it may do very well,

SANCTIONS. Ill

and answer his purposes, if he is pleased with
it, and convinced by it. BuMvhat good can be
expected from mentioning it, or from the at
tempt to impose it upon others, is what may
deserve to be considered. If he, to whom it is
mentioned, is already of that mind, he wants
nothing that it can do for him ; but if he is of
another mind, it does nothing for him that he
wants : it gives him not, nor so much as pre
tends to give him, any reason for change.

These considerations, be it remembered, are
wholly apart from Revelation. It is assumed,
without reference to any revealed authority, that
there is a disposition in the Deity to produce
pain to no end, and for no result of good that is
to be attained by it.

It is even assumed that this is a fit medium
to prove his moral qualities ; and his moral
qualities, so described, are to be the medium to
prove a revelation.

How mischievously these fallacies hang toge
ther ! How fatal to the beneficial influences of
the religious sanction to place it in contradiction,
in opposition to all the undoubted motives to
action — to all the dictates of experience — to all
the influences of pain and pleasure ! And into
what does such a theory resolve itself? Into
the mere assumptions— the theories — the dog
matisms of the theorist.

112 DEONTOLOGY.

(There is a class of ecclesiastics, whose end is
anything rather than the improvement and ex
ercise of the reasoning faculty ; to overwhelm
it, to fling it into the dust, is their constant task
and toil. They dare not encourage thought, or
lend a helping hand to philosophy. They know
better : those that are penetrating and discreet
among them (and the dull follow the rest
by instinct), know there is a power between
which and themselves there is a natural en
mity, which, if exerted liberally and universally,
cannot but be exerted to their discomfiture.
They remember well, and make due application
of the fable of the Man and Serpent.

They know and see with horror and confusion
how apt sound science is to make men rebel
lious to their doctrines. That expansion of
mind which the acquisition of it confers, that
habit of inquisitiveness to which the pursuit of
it gives birth, is mortal to those delusions by
which the credit of their systems is supported.

^Tl^ey know they have every thing to fear from
philosophy, and thus it is that there is not a
track they would not invite men to in preference
to that of moral science ; and of all tracks, that
best answers their purpose for men to be en
gaged in, which, encircling the foot of the
mountain, and obscuring the approaches to the
summit, offers flowers to fascinate the eye of

SANCTIONS. 113

\

the wanderer, and to keep him for ever lingering
round the base.

"JTljat walk is the walk of Classic Literature :
there grows. the lotus which has fixed the foot
steps of so many a young adventurer to those
regions of unfruitful beauty, and made him drink
oblivion to every nobler distinction*/

If, after all, God be infinitely wise and good,
what service can be rendered him so acceptable
as to obey his laws, which can propose or in
tend nothing but that which is the great, the
necessary, the sole result of wisdom and good
ness, namely, the production of happiness. Is
not the duty we owe to God necessarily involved
in the circle of duties we owe to the human race
— .ourselves included ? And if benevolence be
more prominently an attribute than pride in the
divine nature, must not the duties we owe to
our neighbours be, in his view, pre-eminent over
the services claimed by him ? And can any
service claimed by him be more urgent than
that which he claims on behalf of the whole
family of man ?

To prove that the Divine Being had prohibited
pleasure, would be to implicate, to deny, to
disprove his benevolence. It would set up our
experience in opposition to his benevolence.

That such or such a thing is a cause of pain
or pleasure, is a matter of fact and experience :

VOL. i. i

114 DEONTOLOGY.

that the use of it has been prohibited by the
Deity, is a matter of inference and conjecture.

That the use of it is allowed by him who was
able to have prevented it if he had pleased, is a
matter of fact and experience ; that it is pro
hibited any otherwise than in virtue of its im
purity, is a matter of inference and conjecture.

Infinite are the points that a man must have
been satisfied of, before he can justly be satis
fied that any pleasure, not impure, can have
been prohibited by that Deity, who has im
planted in our bodily and intellectual frame
such a capacity and desire for pleasure.

The proofs that such a prohibition has been
issued by the Supreme Being, can never rise to
be so strong as to equal the proofs of its being
inconsistent with his benevolence.

The notions which commonly prevail as to a
future state, are neither consolatory to benevo
lence, nor encouraging to virtue.

Because few are to enjoy happiness in com
parison of those who are to suffer misery, there
fore, with respect to every man, the presump
tion, antecedently to any examination, of the
chance a man may have of placing himself in
the former class, by means that are in his own
power, is on the side of misery.

Nor is the prospect mended by the considera
tion of the power he may have, by means de-

SANCTIONS. 115

pendent on his own will, to ensure himself to be
of the number of the happy.

Upon the predestinarian scheme, he has no
such power — the matter is already determined,
and was so before he was born : his chance de
pends upon events he can know nothing of, and
that are out of the reach of his influence ; the
chance, therefore, that he has for escaping
misery is simply in the ratio qf the number of
those who are to be happy, to that of those who
are to be miseral ' j ; and suppose those num
bers are as one to ten, it is ten to one in every
man's case against his being otherwise than
miserable.

Rejecting the predestinarian, and admitting
the commonly received theory of future punish
ment, whatever power any given man has of
avoiding future misery, the same has every
other man ; and yet more, many more, after all,
are to be miserable than happy.

Again, the means of escaping misery are re
presented as consisting of faith and good works:
either of faith alone, or of good works alone, or
of both together.

As to faith, after all the sophisms and devices
that have been employed to conceal the truth
of the matter, there is no one but has every
now and then perceived, that the act of believ
ing is not in his power ; that, in the same man-

116 DEONTOLOGY.

ner as he is unable to believe that to be black
which he sees to be white, so is he unable to
believe any thing to be one way when he sees
greater evidence to believe it to be another.

As to good works, to take them in the largest
sense, they consist in evil actions avoided, and
in good ones done.

And what, after all, can determine what is
good and what evil, but the standard of utility ?

It is not pretended that any assurance with
respect to the ratio, either in number or quality
of evil acts omitted, to evil acts done, or of good
acts done to good acts omitted, necessary to
ensure a man against future misery, can be
obtained.

A man with ten chances for ten thousand a
year, or any greater sum for ever, to one for a
perpetual fit of the cholic or stone, could hardly
be easy, could hardly be any otherwise than
under great anxiety ; but here are ten chances
—perhaps a hundred, perhaps a thousand, — for
the cholic or the stone, to one for the ten thou
sand a year.

Hence, it appears, that whatever sanctions or
motives to virtue the commonly adopted opinions
as to a future state afford, they are to be found
alone in such portions of these opinions, as are
consistent with the Deontological principle ; that
the doctrines generally received are inconsistent

SANCTIONS. ^117

with that principle; inconsistent with human
happiness ; and therefore cannot be true.

Nothing is farther from the intention and con
viction of the writer than to deny the existence
of a scheme of future rewards and punishments,
whose object shall be to maximise happiness, and
to develope the benevolent attributes of the
Divinity. It is only intended here to show in
some particulars the inconsistency of some or
thodox opinions with the true principles of
morality, and their incompatibility with the pro
duction and progress of that felicity which it is
the object of morality to accomplish.

The religious sanction is founded, and can
only be founded, on the moral attributes of God,
and those moral attributes cannot oppose hap
piness.

Justice is of use no farther than as the hand
maid of benevolence.

Justice is one of those means for compassing
the ends that benevolence proposes.

If God is just, it is because he is benevolent.
[if. there is no benevolent Being that looks to
us, we must look to ourselves ; we must pro
cure our own happiness by ourselves, as far as
we can. What other resource is left to us ?

I If there is a Being that watches over us, but
is not benevolent, he is not just: there is no
guessing what will please him ; there is no

118 DEONTOLOGY.

guessing what will not please him ; there is ho
knowing how to please him : our only wisdom
is to please ourselves.

' If there is a benevolent Being that watches
over us, .that rewards and punishes in the exer
cise of that benevolence, he, at least, cannot be
displeased at our procuring our happiness to the
utmost ; for the disposition to contribute to it is
what we mean by benevolence, when we mean
any thing, and in the very proportion of our
love and reverence will our conviction of his
benevolence be.

By a given instance, however, the operation
of the different sanctions upon conduct may be
best traced,

Timothy Thoughtless and Walter Wise are
fellow prentices. Thoughtless gave into the
vice of drunkenness ; Wise abstained from it,
Mark the consequence.

1. Physical sanction. For every debauch,
Thoughtless was rewarded by sickness in the
head ; to recruit himself he lay in bed the next
morning, and his whole frame became enervated
by relaxation ; and when he returned to his
work, his work ceased to be a source of satis
faction to him.

Walter Wise refused to accompany him to the
drinking table. His health had not been origi
nally strong, but it was invigorated by tempe-

SANCTIONS. 119

ranee. Increasing strength of body gave in
creasing zest to every satisfaction he enjoyed :
his rest at night was tranquil, his risings in the
morning cheerful, his labor pleasurable.

2. Social sanction. Timothy had a sister,
deeply interested in his happiness. She
reproved him at first, then neglected, then
abandoned him. She had been to him a
source of great pleasure — it was all swept
away.

Walter had a brother, who had shown indif
ference to him. That brother had watched over
his conduct, and began to show an interest in
his well-being — the interest increased from day
to day. At last he became a constant visitor,
and a more than common friend, and did a thou
sand services for his brother, which no other
man in the world would have done.

3, Popular sanction. Timothy was member
of a club, which had money and reputation.
He went thither one day in a state of inebriety ;
he abused the secretary, and was expelled by an
unanimous vote.

The regular habits of Walter had excited the
attention of his master. He said one day to his
banker — The young man is fitted for a higher
.station. The banker bore it in mind, and on
the first opportunity,, took him into his service.

120 DEONTOLOGY.

He rose from one distinction to another, and
was frequently consulted on business of the
highest importance by men of wealth and in
fluence,

4. Legal sanction. Timothy rushed out from
the club whence he had been so ignominiously
expelled. He insulted a man in the streets,
and walked pennyless into the open country.
Reckless of every thing, he robbed the first
traveller he met; he was apprehended, prose
cuted, and sentenced to transportation.

Walter had been an object of approbation to
his fellow-citizens. He was called, by their
good opinion, to the magistracy. He reached
its highest honors, and even sat in judgment on
his fellow apprentice, whom time and misery
had so changed, that he was not recognised by
him.

5. Religious sanction. In prison, and in the
ship which conveyed Timothy to Botany Bay,
his mind was alarmed and afflicted with the
apprehension of future punishment — an angry
and avenging Deity was constantly present
to his thoughts, and every day of his exist
ence was embittered by the dread of the Divine
Being.

To Walter the contemplation of futurity was
peaceful arid pleasureable. He dwelt with con-

121

slant delight on the benign attributes of the
Deity, and the conviction was ever present to
him that it must be well, that all ultimately
must be well, to the virtuous. Great, indeed,
was the balance of pleasure which he drew
from his existence, and great was the sum of
happiness to which he gave birth.

122. DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER VIII.

CAUSES OF IMMORALITY.

THE causes of immorality have been glanced at
in our progress. They may be comprised under
the following heads. False principles in morals,
misapplication of religion, preference of the self-
regarding to the social interest, and lastly,
preference of lesser present to greater distant
pleasure.

'; False principles in morals may be classed
under the two heads of asceticism and senti-
mentalism, and both demand the useless sacri
fice of pleasure, the sacrifice of pleasure to no
purpose of greater pleasure. Asceticism pro
ceeds farther than sentimentalism, and inflicts
useless pain. Both avoid the putting forward
reasons, and act, as far as it is possible to act,
upon the affections. Asceticism generally on
the antipathies, by fear and terror ; sentimen
talism on the sympathies. They both would
dispense with the assistance of books of mora
lity, and confirm men in the notion that bad
morals are all that are fit for practice ; good

CAUSES OF IMMORALITY. 123t

ones only for discourse and parade. They both
shun the application of the tests of morality,
and exist, in their highest exercise, where
morality is at its lowest point. Asceticism then
becomes the immediate and close ally of mis
anthropy, and sentimentalism of helplessness.]
False morality can never be cultivated but at
the expense of true morality.

Out of the ascetic principle — the principle of
antipathy — grows the wish to punish vindic
tively; to make punishment minister to dis
like. Men punish because they hate, and they
imagine that the law itself is but the inflicter
of the vengeance of the law. The more intense
men's hatred, the more severe would they fain
make the punishment with which they visit the
objects of their hatred. Crimes, they are told,
they ought to hate. Crimes it is made a mat
ter of merit in them to hate. Crimes it is a
matter of merit, more, perhaps, of merit than of
necessity, to punish. They are to hate them,
they are to punish them. It is their hating
makes them wish to punish. How, then, should
they punish, but as they hate? The more they
are disposed to hate, the more they are disposed
to punish. What wonder? To ordinary ap
prehensions no mischief from this is visible.
Yet more, no mischief, in many cases, exists.

124 DEONTOLOGY.

Since, in many cases, it is true, that the cause
of hatred and the demand for punishment —
the cause which makes hatred rise, and the
reason which makes punishment expedient —
increase together.

If the quantity of punishment, in any case, is
greater than it need be ; if of punishment for
any act there be more than is needful, it is
either because there is too much of it where the
case wants some, or there is some of it where
the case wants none. What harm in a man's
suffering, who does an act I hate? What harm
in the man's suffering whom I hate? When a
man suffers whom I hate, when confessedly he
ought to suffer, what matter whether it be a
little less or a little more ?

Such is the reasoning of the multitude of
men.

How should they punish but as they hate?
What other standard than their hatred should
they assume? It is the clearest standard, at
least at any given time when it is applied,
though at different times its decisions are so
apt to vary. What standard clearer? To
know whether they hate an act, to know which
of two acts they hate most, what have they but
to consult their feelings ?j

What standard should they take ? Even this

CAUSES OF IMMORALITY. 125

or none. For to this hour, except in here and
there a solitary sentence, dropped, as it were,
by accident, no other has been brought into use.
Another, and here and there another, has been
indeed set up, but these have not themselves
been rectified by the grand standard of utility.
They clash. Nobody has yet attempted to
mark out to each its limits, and to arrange them
under harmonious heads.

vWhat marvel, then,/ that ignorance of the
only real standard of right and wrong should
administer to immorality ? What marvel £that
men, given over to their prejudices and passions,
should eagerly make those prejudices and pas
sions the rules of conduct ? And while anti
pathy, on the one side, deals out unmerited
punishment, it is natural that sympathy should,
on the other side, shield misconduct from de
served blame.]

^^Cliis tendency to make your own antipathies
or predilections the standard of morals is easily
encouraged, by keeping out of the way the
standard which utility furnishes. Hence those
who dread the light which its radiance throws
upon human actions, are fond of j engaging
their votaries in the chace of an inaccessible,
wandering will-o'-the-wisp, which they call
motive— an entity buried in inapproachable

126 DEONTOLOGY.

darkness, and which, if it were approachable
and produceable, would be of no value what
ever.]

The search after motive is one of the promi
nent causes of men's bewilderment in the inves
tigation of questions of morals. The search is
grounded on a vague notion that in the spring
of action, rather than the act itself, the real
quantity and quality of vice and virtue might
be found. But this is a pursuit in which every
moment employed is a moment wasted. All
motives are abstractedly good ; no man has,
ever had, can, or could have, a motive different
from the pursuit of pleasure or the shunning of
pain. The motive which produces no act, is
merely speculative and immaterial, offering
no topic either of praise or blame. But be
motives what they may, and they always
must be the same, that is, pleasure-seeking
and pain-avoiding, it is not on them that
the moralist is called to deliver his award.
He has to do with conduct — with conduct,
when its consequences invade the regions of
suffering and enjoyment. He is but a despotic
intruder elsewhere.

Next to the misapplication of false principles
to morality, the misapplication of religion takes
its place among the Causes of immorality, and

CAUSES OF IMMORALITY. 127

its misapplication will be traced wherever its
sanctions are applied to the diminution of the
balance of pleasure or the production or increase
of the balance of pain. And there can be no
stronger test of the truth or falsehood of any
religion than its conduciveness or repugnancy to
the greatest human happiness. To understand
religion is to understand the will of God. God
is a being among whose attributes is benevo
lence ; benevolence not imperfect, not limited,
but infinite benevolence. And how can he be
benevolent, but in proportion to the quantity
of happiness which it is his wish to see enjoyed
by those who are subject to his power? And
if that happiness be not an empty name, of
what can it be composed but of pleasures ? Be
the pleasure what it may, to demand its aban
donment, without the substitution of a greater
pleasure, or to supersede it by a more than
equivalent pain, cannot be an act of benevo
lence. To speak of a being as benevolent, and
to represent him as producing, or intending to
produce, a balance of misery, is a contradiction
in terms. And by the use of no phraseology
can the character of things be altered. Neither
actions nor persons change their nature, because
their nature is falsely designated by words.
If a stab be called a kiss, it does not therefore
become an act of kindness.

128 DEONTOLOGY,

To draw a distinction between the attributes
of God and the attributes of man, to say that
God's benevolence, though different from man's
benevolence, is still benevolent, is mere mock
ing. Except as applied to human conduct
and to human feelings, how did the word
benevolence acquire its meaning ? Be it what
it may, an effect is still the same ; it is still
itself, whatsoever be its author or its cause.
To ascribe to God, under the name of benevo
lence, that which, ascribed to man, would not
be benevolence, is, on the part of him whom
terror or prejudice has not blinded, an act of
fraud : under the name of a fish it is to sell a
serpent. By being called a silk-worm, would
a scorpion become harmless ?

And what is true of any one attribute cannot
but be true of any other. Any other than as
man is just, can any other being be just?
And so of knowledge, and veracity, and power.
From what but from the observation of human
conduct or human feelings, can the idea of jus
tice — the idea for which the word justice has
been found — from what can it have been
derived ?

That portion of the field of thought which
religion, as unconnected with ethics, occupies,
it is no part of our present purpose to explore.
Ethics, not religion, is the subject of this work.

CAUSES OF IMMORALITY. 129

Religious discussion would be here superfluous
and irrelevant.

The prevalence of the self-regarding over the
social interest, as a cause of immorality, it
belongs, in a great measure, to the ruling powers
to remove. Wise legislation would be directed
to their identification, to the production of an
accordance between the popular and the poli
tical sanction. This accordance is strengthened
by every law that is good ; weakened by every
law that is bad. A legal penalty, for example,
attached to an act in which a man's interest
is associated with the public interest, as where
prohibition is attached to the circulation of that
which is an instrument of enjoyment or an object
of virtuous desire, not only produces immo--
rality, not only offers a premium on immorality,
but destroys the power of the political sanction,
by disassociating it from the popular interest.
Topics like this, however, belong rather to pub
lic than to private Deontology, and it is only to
the latter that this volume has reference.

It may, however, be not amiss to advert to the
fact, that7 out of the clashing of the popular inte
rests with those sinister interests which are too
often protected by legislation, misery and immo
rality frequently grow to a frightfully baneful ex
tent. The fiscal regulations of many countries —

VOL. I, K

130 DEONTOLOGY,

monopolies established by law — frequently pre
sent cases in which the violator of the letter ot
the statute can scarcely be considered other than
the benefactor of the public. Cases occur in
which the popular sanction is outraged by the
political ; arid the popular sanction, in conse
quence, takes acts under its protection which
are held up by the political sanction as offences
and crimes fit to be visited by penalties more
or less severe. The triumph over despotism,
where the many have been engaged against
the one or the few, is the triumph of the
popular over the political sanction. Every step
in the way of social improvement, which is
made by the subject against the government, is
a similar victory. Good government is, in a
word, the harmony established between legis
lation and enlightened opinion. But the subject
is too vast for discussion in all its bearings on
this occasion.

The last cause of immorality which remains
to be mentioned, is the preference of the present
lesser good to the distant greater good; the
avoidance of the present lesser evil when a
greater distant evil will be the consequence.
This is the peculiar topic of our present atten
tion : and the source of the error may be traced
to erroneous education, intellectual and moral.

CAUSES OF IMMORALITY. 131

I Vice-may be defined to be a miscalculation
of chances : a mistake in estimating the value
of pleasures and pains. It is false moral arith
metic ; and there is the consolation of knowing
that, by the application of a right standard,
there are few moral questions which may not
be resolved, with an accuracy and a certainty
not far removed from mathematical demon
stration, j

132 DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER IX.

"ANALYSIS OF CONFUSED PHRASEOLOGY, BY THE
DEONTOLOGICAL TEST.

t TH_EUE are some terms, employed not unfre-
qt^ntly by the legislator and the moralist,j
which appear to require a few sentences of
explanation. As long as they are made sub
servient to the Deontological rule, the prin
cipal mischief which results from their use
is this — that more perfect and convenient ex
pressions might be found ; so that words are
wasted, and a round-about way is taken in the
pursuit of truth. Some of these terms have,
however, [obtained such complete possession
of the field of ordinary expression, that the
attempt to displace them would be almost
hopeless. In fact, the general imperfection of
language is one of the great impediments to the
the progress of philosophy. Correct ideas find
great difficulty in discovering appropriate terms.
Language lags behind science, and too fre
quently refuses its aid to knowledge. The
innovations of philosophy upon long-received
expressions are slow and difficult. Philology is

ANALYSIS OF CONFUSED PHRASEOLOGY. 133

apt to refuse the contributions of the other
sciences. It prides itself on its poverty. And
this is the more to be regretted, inasmuch as all
languages had their birth in a period when moral
and intellectual cultivation could only be in their
infancy. / A time will come, it is earnestly to
be hoped, when morality, like chemistry, will
create its own fit nomenclature.

Nothing is more fatal than the misuse, or
rather the abuse of language. Qualities the
most opposed frequently shroud themselves
under the same phraseology. If there were a
language peculiar to innocence, it would only
be so for one moment, the next it would be
usurped by guilt.

Principle is a term in frequent use, to express
moral qualities. A man of principle — a man of
no principle — a man of bad principle. What
is the meaning of the phrase? What is the
ground of the estimation in which the man is
held, who obtains the benefit of a reputation for
acting on principle ? It is that he is supposed
to have laid down for himself a certain rule of
conduct, and acts constantly and steadily in
conformity to it. This were indeed well, if his
rule of conduct were a good rule ; if its end
and object were the general well-being: but
supposing his rule of conduct to be a bad rule,
that it has not for its object the general well-

134 DEONTOLOGY.

being, surely he is entitled to Ho approbation.
A man is said to act habitually on principle,
who unswervingly pursues his own course,
notwithstanding all solicitations to the contrary.
These solicitations are temptations, administered
in the shape of pleasures to be immediately
enjoyed, and pains to be immediately avoided ;
and, undoubtedly, he will have learnt to master
these solicitations in proportion as he has
proved himself able to forego these pleasures
and to suffer these pains. But if his resistance
be such that the sum of happiness is diminished
by his conduct, if his rules are not in confor
mity with the demands of utility, his principle,
or in other words, his pertinacity, will be use
less or pernicious, to the extent in which he
fails to give adherence to the Deontological
law. It is by contrast with him who is
called a man of no principle that a man of
principle obtains approbation. A man of no
principle is a man who, without regard to
consequences, allows the solicitations of present
pleasure, or the apprehension of present pain,
to direct his conduct; while a man of bad
principle is one who has laid down for himself a
rule, that the welfare of others shall on no
occasion form a part of his consideration, ; as,
for instance, when he determines to do mis
chief to every man whose opinion on any par-

ANALYSIS OF CONFUSED PHRASEOLOGY. 135

titular subject differs from his own. In such
a case, those who do not join him in the obser
vance of his rule, will concur in the propriety of
affixing on him the title of a bad-principled man.
LlJs possible, however, for the man of bad prin
ciple to be less pernicious than the man of no
principle ; the one/will, on all occasions, make
his line of conduct subservient to his immediate
ends; he,has no principle to prevent his doing
so : the other may have some good principle,
operating at times to correct or counteract the
bad principle. Independently of which, the
bad principle may be sometimes inert from
want of excitement or opportunity of exercise ;
while the mind of the man of no principle being
open to every impression of present influence,
will in most cases be seduced by temptation.

, Right is, for the most part, a recognition
by law of something claimed by one or more
individuals. It is that to the enforcement of
which the legal powers lend their sanction. It
enters little into the Deontological field, where
the business consists chiefly in the proper dis
tribution of obligations. Deontology endeavors
to give to obligation the efficiency of action,
and where different obligations clash, it deter
mines which should preponderate. It is true
that the legal sanction has obligation attached
to it, obligation in the most perfect form, obli-

136 DEONTOLOGY.

gation co-existent with right; but it will also
sometimes appear that the obligation produced
by the legal sanction is superseded by the
Deontological, as where, for example, the infrac
tion of a law may be attended with greater good
than its observance.

The demand of rights sometimes takes the
most extensively-baneful range of all the sources
of action. The right of empire, for instance,
has been made the ground-work of unbounded
profligacy and consequent misery ; the plea for
rapine and murder on the largest scale. It
may be a concupiscense of the most atrocious
and horrible character, and has been put for
ward by men like the Prince de Conde', as an
excuse and a sanction for every species of
iniquity.

Left to itself, wandering about without the
Deontological chain to bring it back to its fit
abode, it is one of the most pernicious of pre
tenders. \ In the political field despotism, with
all its horrors, takes its stand upon it. In the
religious field, persecution; in the popular,
injustice; in the domestic, parental, marital, or
other tyranny.

Subservient to utility, there is no objection
either to the word or the thing ; that which is
useful is right : a right is that which grows out
of the application of the greatest happiness

ANALYSIS OF CONFUSED PHRASEOLOGY. 137

- principle. Such a right cannot be shaken by
argument ; but no such right can be assumed
in any given case. (Weigh pains, weigh plea
sures; and as the Balance stands, will stand
the question of right and wrong./

Conscience is a thing of fictitious existence,
supposed to occupy a seat in the mind. A con
scientious person is one who, having made to
himself a rule of conduct, steadily abides by it.
In the common use of the phrase, it is implied
that his rule of conduct is the correct one.
But only in so far as his rule of conduct is con
sistent with the principles of utility can his
conscientiousness be deemed virtuous. When
ever his conscientiousness takes a direction
opposed to the general well-being, it is perni
cious in the very proportion of its influence.

Good and evil conscience are sometimes used
to represent the tribunal before which a man
tries the merits of his own actions in his own
mind, and the recompense or punishment which
he attaches to those actions. A good con
science is the favorable opinion which a man
entertains of his own conduct ; an evil con
science is the unfavorable decision of a man on
his own conduct. But the value of the judg
ment given must wholly depend on its being
subservient to, or rather on its being an appli
cation of the greatest happiness principle.

138 DEONTOLOGY,

CHAPTER X.

VIRTUE DEFINED.

VIRTUE is the head of a large family. The vir
tues are the members of it. The scene offered
to the imagination is that of a parent followed
by numerous offspring. Latin being the source
whence the word is derived, and the word being
of the feminine gender, the image presented is
that of a mother, surrounded by her daughters.
An appellation gives an idea of existence, but
virtue is a fictitious entity,* growing out of the

* What, it will be perhaps said, deny the existence of
virtue ? Virtue an empty name — no such thing as virtue !
Horrible ! What an opinion must such a man have of human
nature! What good, what useful information can be ex
pected from him? What, of any sort, but the most perni
cious ? If virtue is an imaginary thing, so also must vice be ;
and thus virtue and vice will be on a level — alike creatures of
the imagination, alike objects of indifference ! It is thus,
sometimes, that a novel form of expression is met, vitupe
rated and dismissed ; but no clear idea can possess the mind,
until a separation has taken place between that which is real
and that which is fictitious. The fictitious may be an instru
ment which the unsatisfactory state of language compels us
to employ, for the purposes of introducing realities. Vir
tuous deeds, virtuous propensities, are existent things, and

VIRTUE DEFINED. 139

imperfection of language — of language created
long before the phenomena of mind were studied
or understood.

Virtue not having a superior genus is not sus
ceptible of what is commonly meant by a defi
nition, which is a reference to some generic
appellation embracing it. By the medium of
its conjugates it is capable of being expounded ;
and when the words, a virtuous act, a virtuous
habit, or a virtuous disposition, are used, a
tolerably determinate conception is conveyed
by them to the mind.

When a man says of an act that it is vir
tuous, he merely conveys an opinion that it
merits his approbation, and thereon comes the
inquiry, what is the ground of that opinion ?

On looking closely into the matter, it will be
found that the ground, in different places, is
very different, so that it would not be very easy
to give a general answer. If the answers be
correct, they will be different, and to collect
them all, intricate and all-comprehensive as
they are, boundless must be the researches in
the field of geography and history. And thus
it is, that when it is demanded why an act is
virtuous, or what constitutes the virtue of an

for all practical purposes the result is the 8ame. Two per
sons may employ a very different phraseology, though their
meaning may be identical.

140 DEONTOLOGY.

act, the only response to so important an in*
quiry will be, when thoroughly sifted — It is vir
tuous because I think it to be so, and its virtue
consists in its having ray favourable opinion.

A new ground is put forward here. The
* ground of approbation will be the tendency of
an act to increase happiness ; the ground of re
probation the tendency of an act to diminish
happiness.

The attempt is here made to develope this
principle to its fullest extent. Wherever there
is a particle of happiness, however small, with
out any counterbalancing evil, there will be
ground for approval, though not necessarily evi
dence of virtue. Virtue is the effort, the con
quest of a difficulty, leaving, as its results, a
balance of happiness. There may be, there is
much good in the world, which no virtue has
been concerned in producing. But there is no
virtue where there is no balance of happiness.

Conduciveness to happiness being then the
test of virtue, and all happiness being composed
of our own happiness and that of others, the
production of our own happiness is prudence,
the production of the happiness of others is
effective benevolence. The tree of virtue is
thus divided into two great stems, out of which
grow all the other branches of virtue.

Since the time of Aristotle, four virtues, Pru-

VIRTUE DEFINED. 141

dence, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice, have
taken the names of the cardinal virtues; — cardo
being the Latin for a hinge, and these became
the cardinal virtues, because on them, as doors
on hinges, all other virtues were said to turn.
But do they turn on these four hinge-like vir
tues ? By no means. The list is excessive ;
but does it not embrace the whole ? By no
means. For in Aristotle's catalogue the virtue
of benevolence — effective benevolence— is for-
•gotten, and there is nothing in its stead but
justice, which is but a portion of benevolence in
disguise. The list consists of three virtues,
which regard the actor only ; while, for all the
rest of mankind, there is a virtue, which is a
very small part of a virtue indeed.

It will, however, be seen, that it is only
with reference to pains and pleasures that any
clear conception attaches to the words virtue or
vice. Familiarly as their different titles sound
to the ear, any part of the meaning which can
not be brought under the influence of their re
lation to happiness and unhappiness, will and
must continue unsettled and confused.

Only, in so far, then, as it produces happi
ness or misery can an act be properly called
virtuous or vicious. Virtue and vice are but
useless qualities unless estimated by their in
fluences on the creation of pleasure and pain.

142 DEONTOLOGY.

They are fictitious entities, spoken of as real,
for the purposes of discourse, and without
fictions of this character, on subjects such as
these, discussions could hardly be .carried on.
The application of the principle of Deontology
will alone enable us to discover whether decep
tive impressions are conveyed by the employ
ment of the terms, and) it will be found on a
close examination, that virtue and vice are, as
has been stated, but representatives of two
qualities, namely, prudence and effective bene
volence, and their contraries, with the different
modifications springing out of them, and which
regard ourselves primarily, and next, all be
sides ourselves.

If the effect of virtue were to prevent or
destroy more pleasure than it produced, or to
produce more pain than it prevented, its more
appropriate name would be wickedness and
folly : wickedness, as it affected others ; folly,
as respected him who practised it. And if the
influence of vice were to promote pleasure and
to diminish pain, vice would be entitled to the
names of beneficence and wisdom.

Virtue is the preference given to a greater
good in comparison with a less ; but it is called
upon for its exercise when the lesser good is
magnified by its adjacency, and the greater
good diminished by its remoteness. In the self-

VIRTUE DEFINED. 143

regarding part of the field of conduct, it is the
sacrifice of a present inclination to a distant
personal recompense. In the social part, it is
the sacrifice of a man's own pleasure to the ob
taining a greater sum of pleasure for the benefit
of others. The sacrifice is either positive or
negative — positive when it is the abandonment
of pleasure, negative when it is the subjection
to pain.

The terms sacrifice or self-denial, are appro
priate where virtue consists in the abstinence
from enjoyment ; but they are less properly
employed where the good sacrificed is of the
negative kind, and the virtue is found in self-
subjection to suffering. But it will be obvious
that though the idea of virtue may be sometimes
included in the idea of sacrifice, or self-denial,
yet these are by no means synonymous with
virtue, nor are they necessarily included in the
idea of virtue. To the character of virtue, in
a great number of cases, no doubt, the quality
of courage is indispensable ; but courage, in so
far as it consists in exposure to pain — to bodily
pain, for example, unaccompanied by danger to
life, cannot be fitly called sacrifice — so self-denial
cannot be said to have place in cases where a
man abandons nothing which he might have
obtained.

Virtue has not only to struggle with indivi-

144 DEONTOLOGY,

dual inclination, it has sometimes to struggle
against the general inclination of the human
species, and it is when it triumphs over both
that it exists in its highest degree of perfection.
In proportion as a man has acquired a com
mand over his desires, resistance to their im
pulse becomes less and less difficult, till, at
length, in some constitutions, all difficulty
vanishes. In early life, for example, a man
may have acquired a taste for wine, or for a
particular species of food. Finding it disagree
with his constitution, little by little, the uneasi
nesses attendant on the gratification of his ap
petite become so frequent, so constantly present
to his recollection, that the anticipation of the
future certain pain gains strength enough to
overpower the impression of the present plea
sure. The idea of the greater distant suffering
has extinguished that of the lesser contempora
neous enjoyment. And it is thus that by the
power of association things, which had been
originally objects of desire, become objects of
aversion; and, on the other hand, things which
had been originally objects of aversion, such as
medicines, for instance, become objects of de
sire. In the case above referred to, the plea
sure not being in possession could not, of
course, be sacrificed — it was non-existent ; nor
was there self-denial in the case, for as the de-

VIRTUE DEFINED. 145

sire which had originally been calling for its
gratification was no longer in existence, there
remained no demand to which denial could be
opposed. When things are in this situation, the
virtue, so far from being annihilated, has arrived
at the pinnacle of its highest excellence, and
shines forth in its brightest lustre. Defective
indeed would that definition of virtue be, which
excluded from its pale the very perfection of
virtue.

Effort, undoubtedly, is needful to virtue, and
the seat of that effort, in the case of prudence, is
principally in the understanding ; in the case of
effective benevolence, mainly in the will and
the affections.

I meet an adversary in the road. He aims a
blow at me with a stick. I spring aside and
escape the stroke. Here is usefulness — self-
preservation ; but here is no room for prudence.

I hear that an adversary is laying wait for me
at a certain spot. I avoid the path that leads
to it, and repair to my place of destination by
a more circuitous or expensive road. Here is
usefulness by self-preservation ; but here, too,
there has been exercise of the understanding,
and room, at least, for prudence.

And so, when the seat of the effort has been
the will. I purchase at the baker's shop a loaf
for my own dinner ; there is double usefulness —

VOL. i. L

146 DEONTOLOGY.

usefulness to myself by the preservation of life ;
to the baker by his profit on the loaf.

I am accosted by a famished beggar. He
has more need of the loaf than I. I give it
him, and lose my dinner. Here, too, is useful
ness ; but here, also, is virtue : for, to subject
myself to pain, as here, — to pain in the shape of
hunger, — requires an effort, and that effort I
have made.

But, though the test of virtue be usefulness,
or, in other words, the production of happiness
— virtue being, as above, that which is benefi
cial, and vice that which is pernicious to the
community, — there is no identity between virtue
and usefulness, for there are many beneficial
actions which do not partake of the nature of
virtue. Virtue demands effort. Of all the
actions of man, those which preserve the indi
vidual, and those which preserve the species,
are undoubtedly the most beneficial to the com
munity. But there is no virtue in these. As
regards effort — though effort is needful to vir
tue, and to the production of virtue, it is not
needful that the time of the effort should be the
very moment when the virtue is practised. All
that is necessary is, that the virtuous act should
be of that character for the production of which,
in the conduct of most men, an effort is re
quired. For the habit, whose formation re-

VIRTUE DETINED. 147

quired an effort, acts at last without requiring
such an impulse. Take, for instance, the con
fining anger within the limits prescribed by pru
dence and benevolence. If there could be no
virtue without contemporaneous effort, then
would virtue, arrived at its consummation, cease
to be virtue.

It is curious enough that in the Aristotelian
school an exclusion is put upon virtue when it
is exercised in the highest degree — where any
thing remains of inclination to be subdued,
however perfect the subjugation may be, then
the title of virtue is refused, and to the deci
dedly superior claim, the inferior title of semi-
virtue > or half virtue, is awarded.

These half-virtues are called by the author
of the Oxford Compendium, * only rudiments/
and evidence of * good dispositions3 towards
' a habit of virtue;' but ' entire virtues/ he says,
they are by no means to be denominated.*

He will, however, have them subject to * me
diocrity' or moderation (rnediocritas^) as the
dominant virtue, after all.

According to him, virtue consists in doing,
without the cost of any sacrifice, what is right

• Compendium, p. 69.

f The allusion here is to another Aristotelian tenet, that,
in every case, virtue consists — that every species of virtue
consists — in mediocrity.

148 DEONTOLOGY.

to be done, and for every whole virtue there
is a half-virtue. And, with a limitation, for
which it is not very easy to discover the reason,
the half-virtues are paired off with the whole
virtues.

The half-virtues, he avows, have as many
classes as the whole ones, but they must be
grouped under certain genera.

And so he goes on to arrange his half-virtues
under two heads — continentia et tolerantia, con
tinence and tolerance, — corresponding, he says,
with the concupiscent and irascible appetites ;
continence being taken in hand by concupis
cence, and tolerance by irascibility. Now the
difference between the whole and the half vir
tues being constituted only by the presence or
absence of reluctance, there seems no reason
why the same division should not apply to every
part of the field of virtue. But the farther he
proceeds the deeper is the darkness gathered
round him, and the imperfection of his classifi
cation becomes palpable. Does he mean by
tolerantia, the subjection of one's self to bodily
pain? Truly does he, if he is to be believed.
In fact he says so, in so many words.*

But this tolerance, he continues, is a virtus
imperfecta (an imperfect virtue) whose value

* Page 70.

VIRTUE DEFINED. 149

certainly he hesitates to put too prominently
forward, and whose influence, he fears, may be
interfered with through imbecility of mind.*
Tolerance, by which he means the power of
suffering — and not the virtue of candid and
benevolent judgment — will, after all, be found
to have been too much honored by the Oxonian's
eulogy. It is not a half-virtue. It is no virtue
at all. It is the physical disposition to resist
the influences of pain, which nature has given
to some men and denied to others, without
adding to or subtracting from the virtues of
those who have it, or those who have it not.

The irascible appetite is that which seeks to
visit with its ill-will the object of its anger —
the appetite seeking its gratification by the pro
duction of pain in the breast of him who is the
subject of its visitation. But the seat of the
pain produced by anger is really the heart of the
angry person. Does this make him virtuous,
which it ought to do, according to the Aristote
lian definition ?

Yet, according to the view of the Oxford
teacher of morality, this subject, which he has
left involved in such midnight obscurity, is im
portant in the very highest degree. On it de
pends the dreadful difference between salvation
and damnation. Yet these very qualities — this

* Page 71.

150 DEONTOLOGY.

continence and tolerance, which Aristotle dis
misses with the light character of imperfect
virtues — are, in a theological point of view (so
says the Oxonian moralist), not only among the
most perfect, but among the most arduous
virtues. According to Aristotle's morality, half
is no more than half; a half- virtue is but a
half-virtue. According to Oxford theology,
half is equal to, if not greater than the whole.
But in this, mystery is made out of every thing,
and out of nothing ; and the more mystery the
more merit.

It would, indeed, have been well, if to the
Aristotelian appetites, the appetite for mystery
had been added by the Oxonian ; an appetite
which may be described as being always in the
forest of so-called religion, hunting for absur
dity and nonsense, and feeding upon its aliment
with a relish directly proportioned to its gross-
ness.

Before the title of virtue is demanded for an
action, its conduciveness to happiness must be
proved. According to Aristotle and his Oxford
disciple, virtue consists in mediocrity — so in
Latin, at least ;> for it may be thought that
moderation is the more fit translation of media-
critas ; but, at all events, it is mediocritas. And
here let it be remarked, by the way, that if
morality had been intended for use — if it had
been thought good enough for the business of

VIRTUE MWNED. 151

life, a living language, and not a dead one,
would have been employed for teaching it : the
language of the many, not the language of the
few. Now what is the value of a definition?
That we may know the thing defined. Of a
description? Clearly that we may recognize
the thing described. And let us see whether
the end is accomplished here.

The virtue is named, it is stuck between two
qualities of the same character, which are not
virtues ; in one of which the qualities of the
virtues are deficient, in the other they are ex
cessive: here is your designation of virtue, here
is the example, running through the whole
string of virtues. The only thing, then, need
ful, is to show what, on each occasion, is the
exact quantity of the quality out of which virtue
is made, to produce it ready for use, correctly
weighed out, neither too much nor too little ;
for if you get it not in the exact quantity, get
what you may, you will not get virtue.

But for this all-important object you will
find no help from our moralist. There are, he
tells you, three doses of the moral medicine:
there is the proper dose, the excessive dose,
and the deficient dose. In the proper dose
there is health and safety ; in the others peril
and perdition. Has he not noted down the
sanatory quantity? Not he! Are there no

152 DEONTOLOGY.

figures, no means of estimate in his prescription?
Nothing like them.

If a physician treat of diseases, he does not
satisfy himself with scribbling down their names,
but thinks it useful, finds it necessary, indeed,
to record their symptoms. Not so our moralist.
His virtues are names, without symptoms : he
talks of virtue ; but how virtue is to be sepa
rated from that which is not virtue, forms no
portion of his care.

Even common phraseology, the accustomed
use of the terms of right and wrong, justice
and injustice, have, in their habitual employ*
ment, a more decided bearing upon the welfare
of society than is given to the virtues by the
ethical Oxonian. All men have a sort of notion
that government and legislation, and religion
and morality, have, or ought to have, a bene
ficial influence upon the public happiness. On
what other ground, indeed, can they be recom
mended? But on that ground the Oxford
moralist makes no stand.

But the Oxford Compendium offers a series
of definitions for virtue, out of which a man
may take which he pleases.

1 . ' Virtue is an elective habit, consisting in
mediocrity (or in a medium) in regard to our
selves, and as a prudent man would prescribe it.'

Let who can make sense of this. If it have

VIRTUE DEFINED. 153

any meaning^ the meaning is, that there are two
virtues, mediocrity and prudence, and that these
two are one.

2. ' Virtue consists in the conformity of our
actions to the divine will.'

Good. But the difficulty is to know the
divine will on every occasion. The phraseology
of the Bible is general, not particular ; some
times, too, the meaning may be doubtful, and
subject to dispute. And what is the divine will,
as taught in the Bible? What is it, what
can it be but to produce happiness ? What
other motive, what other end has it proposed to
obedience ? The divine will is benignant, bene
volent, beneficent. What do these terms imply
but happiness-intending, happiness-producing ?
So that, if the Oxford moralist has any mean
ing—if the words are not used for the mere
purposes of delusion — his meaning must be our
meaning. And, in that case, he might have
avoided all ambiguity of expression.

3. * Virtue consists in the conformity of our
actions to right reason/

Right reason ? That very reason which the
authorities of Oxford so often declare to be at
variance with the divine will. Human reason,
that is the standard, is it not? Whose right
reason ? Mine, or the man's who differs from
me? Mine, of course; for I cannot hold any

154 DEONTOLOGY.

man's reason to be right which I hold to be
wrong. And I hold his to be wrong, because
I differ from him. Mine, or the Oxford man's ?
Mine. The question is settled. And now let
me dogmatize like the rfest.

4. ' Virtue consists' — the divine will and right
reason consist— ' in mediocrity,'

Here, at last, we have a standard by which
to measure the divine will and right reason too,
and virtue, as the child of both. And now,
reader, all doubts and difficulties being removed,
your moral principle is put into your hand,
that with it you may work your wonders. So
says Aristotle, so says Oxford.

But what says utility ? What are the really
valuable virtues, what the subservient virtues
which grow out of them ? Taking for the
standard and the test of virtue its conducive-
ness to well-being, it is believed, as has been
said above, that all the modifications of virtue
may be arranged under the two heads of pru
dence and beneficence. Beyond these there is
no intrinsically valuable virtue. To one or other
of these every useful moral quality will be
found to belong. These, then, may be called
the primary virtues. Take away prudence, take
away benevolence, from the tree of morals, you
strip it of all its flowers and fruits, of its
strength, its beauty, and its use. You have a

VIRTUE DEFINED. 155

worthless, unproductive trunk, smitten with
barrenness, the mere cumberer of the ground.
The value of the whole tribe of ancillary or
secondary virtues depends altogether on their
subserviency to these two primary virtues.
Hence it follows — 1. That if the primary virtues
were not useful, neither could the secondary
virtues be so. 2. That their utility must con
sist in advancing the same ends which it is
the object of the primary virtues to advance.
3. The tendency of the primary virtues is inva
riably towards usefulness, in the case of some
person or other on whom they are exercised,
whether useful or not to human society on the
whole. 4. The usefulness of the secondary
virtues is to be measured by their tendency to
produce those effects which it is the tendency
of the primary virtues to produce. 5. Their
usefulness must be measured by the degree in
which they contribute to advance those ends,
which are the ends of the primary virtues.
Occasion will be found to bring the whole of the
secondary virtues under review, and to test
their value by the principles which have been
here developed.

The modes in which the various virtues may
be brought into operation — by discourse, by
writing, or by deportment — belong to the prac
tical branch of the subject.

156 DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER XL

SELF-INTEREST, OR SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE.

NATURE, artless and untutored nature, engages
man in the pursuit of immediate pleasure, and
in the avoidance of immediate pain. What
reason can effect is to prevent the sacrifice of
a greater distant pleasure, or the visitation of
a greater distant pain in exchange for those
which are present ; in other words, to prevent
a miscalculation in the amount of happiness.
In this, too, consists the whole of virtue, which
;is but the sacrifice of a smaller present satis
faction, in the shape of a temptation, to a satis
faction of greater magnitude, but more remote,
which is, in fact, a recompense. What can
be done for morality, in the field of self-interest,
is to show how much a man's own happiness
depends upon himself, how much on the effects
his conduct produces in the breasts of those
with whom he is connected by the ties of
mutual sympathy; how much the interest which
others feel in his happiness, and how much the
desire to promote it depend on his own doings.
Suppose a man wedded to intoxication. He

SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 157

will be taught to consider and weigh the amount
of pleasure and pain growing out of his conduct.
He will view, on one side, the intensity and
the duration of the pleasurable excitement.
This will be the account on the side of profit.
Per contra, he will be led to estimate — •
1. Sickness and other effects prejudicial to
health, 2. Future contingent pains, growing
out of probable debility and disease. 3. The
loss of time and the loss of money, and these
in proportion to the value of time and money
in his individual case. 4. The pain produced
in the minds of those who are dear to him ;
as, for instance, a parent, a wife, a child.
5. The disrepute attached to the practice ; the
loss of reputation in the eyes of others. 6. The
risk of legal punishment, and the disgrace
attaching to it ; as when the public exhibition
of that temporary insanity, produced by intoxi
cation, is visited by the laws. 7. The risk
of punishments attached to crimes which a man
is liable to commit while gratifying the pro
pensity to inebriety. 8. The misery produced
by apprehension of punishment in a future state
of being.

All these will probably lead him to discover
that he purchases the pleasures of intoxication
at too great a cost. He will see that morality,
which is virtue, arid happiness, which is self-

158 DEONTOLOGY.

interest, counsel him to avoid excess. He has
the same motive to subdue his intemperate
propensities that a man has, who, in the pur
suit of wealth, can choose between gaining
much and gaining little. Deontology asks no
ultimate sacrifice; her lessons propose a balance
of enjoyment to the man with whom she rea
sons. He is in search of pleasure ; she encou
rages him in the search, she allows it to be
wise, honorable, and virtuous ; but she entreats
him not to err by an erroneous arithmetic ; she
represents a futurity, a probably adjacent futu
rity, with its pleasures and pains. She asks
whether the enjoyment which is taken to-day
will not have to be repaid to-morrow, or the
clay after, with usurious and intolerable interest.
She implores that the same prudent calculation
which every wise man applies to his daily
concerns, may be applied to the most impor
tant of all concerns, those of felicity and misery.
Deontology professes no scorn for that very
selfishness to which vice itself appeals. She
surrenders every point which cannot be proved
to be beneficial to the individual. She consents
even to set aside the code of the lawgiver and
the dogmas of the divine. She takes for granted
that these cannot be unfriendly to her influences,
that neither legislation nor religion are hostile
to morality ; and she insists that morality shall

SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 159

not be opposed to happiness. Make out to her
a case against human felicity, and she. is smit
ten with silence and with helplessness. She
acknowledges that even the drunkard is pro
posing to himself a proper end ; but she is able
to show him that his end will not be accom
plished by drunkenness. She assumes nothing
but that which no man will deny — namely,
that all men wish to be happy. She has no
purpose to answer by despotic dogmatizing.
Her mission is to invite to a sober reckoning of
good and evil. She has no interest in this or
that course of action, in one result or another,
but in so far as there is to be something of
happiness abstracted from the whole. All that
she proposes is to put a bridle upon precipi
tancy, to prevent rashness from taking irre
vocable steps, and entering upon foolish bar
gains. She has no quarrel with any species of
pleasure which does not associate itself with
a more than counterbalancing portion of pain.
In a word, she ministers to selfishness, and, like
a wise and active steward, makes the most of
every man's rent-roll of felicity.

But she is not blind nor thoughtless. She
knows that the present will soon be the past,
and that the opinions of this hour will be modi
fied by the experience of the next. Hence she
desires that the important element of that which

160 DEONTOLOGY. v

.it to be may not be left out of the calculation of
that which is. The teaching is — Weigh every
thing, weigh every thing well that belongs to
the bargain. Make the most of what is given
you to enjoy now ; but if suffering is behind,
if enjoyments greater than those you are grasp
ing are to be surrendered, as the payment
for them, where is your prudence ? If, for the
purchase of the enjoyment you cevet, you inflict
pain upon others greater than your enjoyment,
where is your benevolence ? And if, from the
infliction of that pain upon others, they retaliate
on you with interest, or abstract from your
enjoyments a greater sum than that of which
you deprived them, where, again, is your pru
dence ?

In fact, the self-esteem which takes not into
account any thing future, has as little in it
of prudence as of benevolence. It is truly the
killing the goose for the golden egg.\ * Myself/
' myself/ is but the cry of insensibility to
happiness or unhappiness from external sources;
and insensibility to the pressure of evil is a
clear advantage to its possessor, provided, that
insensibility brings with it no re-action from
others.

Phocion's self-esteem lessened his sense of
his own misfortune. There was no benevolence,
no courtesy in his representing himself as an

SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE, 101

object of greater admiration to his fellow-sufferer
than his fellow-sufferer was to himself. This
was mere arrogance.

Vitellius's self-esteem led him to demand
respect, because he had possessed the highest
portion of prosperity. If that consoled him, so
much the better for him, and nothing the worse
for others.

But self-regarding prudence is not only a
virtue — it is a virtue on which the very exist
ence of the race depends. If I thought more
about you than I thought about myself, I should
be the blind leading the blind, and we should
fall into the ditch together. It is as impossible
that your pleasures should be better to me
than my own, as that your eye-sight should be
better to me than my own. My happiness and
my unhappiness are as much a part of me as
any of my faculties or organs, and I might as
well profess to feel your tooth-ache more keenly
than you do, as to be more interested in your
well-being than in rny own well-being.

There are, however, many who so exaggerate
the selfish principle as to think that, by swel
ling their notions of themselves, they are still
serving their race.

But how? Does a man's pride or vanity
make others happier? If so, there is double
gain. We have got hold of a pleasure, and so

VOL. i. M

1G2 DEONTOLOGY.

have others. Does it not affect others, either
for better or worse ? Still there is a gain, for
man has a pleasure in his own glorification. Does
his pride or his vanity bring annoyance to the
bosoms of others ? There is something thrown
into the other scale ; the calculation must be
made ; all the annoyances suffered by all those
who are annoyed, must be added together,
and weighed against the pleasures of the man's
pride or vanity. It will be, perhaps, found
that the annoyances caused to others are pro
portioned to the intensity of his own self-gra
tification. It is clear that, in such a case, the
balance will be increased in proportion.

The sun of Deontology irradiates the adjacent
regions of prudence and benevolence. By it
light is substituted to darkness, order to chaos.
It solves all intricate problems, and all perplex
ing difficulties vanish before it. By it alone
can be traced out the affinities, — from it alone
can be deduced the relations between the seve
ral classes of moral qualities ; through it alone
can the limits between virtue and vice be disco
vered. All anomalies may be reduced by it, and
by it alone, to harmony and regularity. By it,
and by it alone, a variety of distinctions, which
have stood in an unintelligible or insulated shape,
may be brought into connection or contrast.
It is the spear of Ithuriel, by which evil and

SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 163

good may be detected, and made to present
themselves in their own true characters.

There has been among moralists a vehement
disposition to shut out the influence of the self-
regarding principle from the mind. Why this
reluctance to admit, as a motive, that which is
and must be the strongest of all motives — a
man's regard for himself? Why is not self-love
to be brought into the field ? It is from a sort
of bashfulness — a disposition to consider that
principle to which all the actions and passions
of men owe their birth, as the partie honteuse of
our nature.

But with the recognition of the principle,
that an enlightened regard to self-interest
is the best guarantee for good conduct,
the knowledge and the practice of morality
have undoubtedly made considerable progress,
and delightful it is to trace the slow but visible
march of virtue. It will lose nothing of its
stability, nothing of its power, when it is
discovered to be founded on interest. That
interest some men will not see, and others will
turn away with scorn from the contemplation
of it. Declaimers would ask whether, in an
age like this, which they call degenerate,. a. man
would sacrifice his life for the benefit of his
country. Yes !

There is many and many a man, who, upon

164 DEONTOLOGY.

such calls as have formerly met with the like
obedience, would, for his country, surrender
his existence with pleasure. Does it follow
that, in this or in any thing else, he would act
without an interest ? No such thing. Nothing
like it : it is not in man's nature.

And precisely the same argument holds good
in man's aberrations from duty. They are the
miscalculations of interest.

' There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's
sake ; but thereby to purchase himself profit or
pleasure.' This grand truism was not hidden
from Lord Bacon. His was a mind to be struck
with the beauty of truth wherever it met him ;
but his was not an age when- to pursue it to the
utmost was either practicable or safe.

Yet he could not fail to draw the deduction,
that if vices were upon the whole account pro
fitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.

The sacrifice of interests presents itself ab
stractedly, as something grand and virtuous,
because it is taken for granted that the plea
sure one man flings away must necessarily be
gathered up by another. And supposing no
pleasure were lost in the transfer, and no plea
sure gained, it is clear that the whole sum
of happiness would continue just as it was,
notwithstanding a million shiftings from one
possessor to another. But in the commerce of

SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 165

happiness, as in that of wealth, the prominent
question is, how to make circulation assist pro
duction. Hence, it is no more fit to call disin
terestedness a virtue in moral economy, than to
call expenditure a merit in political economy.
Disinterestedness may exist among the rash
and the reckless; but a man disinterested on
reflection is happily seldom to be found. Show
me the man who throws away more of the
elements of felicity than he creates, and I will
show you a fool and a prodigal. Show me the
man who deprives himself of more good than
he communicates to another, and I will show
you a man ignorant of the elementary arithmetic
of morality.

Out of self-regarding prudence, as a primary
virtue, grow temperance and continence, as
secondary virtues. The breach of them brings
the actor into the regions of pain ; the habitual
breach of them leaves a result of unhappiness,
upon which the eye of prudence cannot turn
without discerning the balance of suffering that
is left behind.

166 DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER XII.

PRUDENCE AS RESPECTS OTHERS, OR EXTRA-
REGARDING PRUDENCE.

THOUGH it belongs to Government to give
increase and extension to the connection which
exists between prudence and effective benevo
lence wherever the political sanction will apply,
it is the duty of the public teacher of morality
to point out their accordance, and to give to that
accordance all the action and effect of which it
is susceptible through his influence.

It is to public opinion, or in other words, to
the popular or moral sanction, that we must
mainly look for the action of the social on the
self-regarding feelings. Of the tribunal of public
opinion every individual of the community may
be a member; every one who gives to his
estimate of the conduct of others any expression
by words or deeds is an acting member, and
every man who takes upon himself to write is a
leading member ; his influence will be propor
tioned to the approbation he receives from his
readers, and the strength of the impression he
conveys to their minds ; and again, on the

EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 167

number and influence of such readers. To
their concurrence and co-operation he must
turn for the measures of his own success.

A man is prompted by ill-will to aim a blow
at another. His ill-will may be restrained by the
apprehension that the blow will be returned by
the person at whom it is aimed, or by a third
party who is a looker-on ; or, secondly, he may be
restrained by the apprehension of legal punish
ment. In one case the physical, in the other the
political sanction is operative ; and there is
in neither any demand for the application of the
Deontological principle. But where these fail,
where they provide no adequate remedy, come
the popular and the social sanctions, to fill up
that portion of the field of action which is
unoccupied by other motives. These two
sanctions are intimately and closely allied, for
the social relations stretch naturally and neces
sarily into the whole frame of society. By
some social link, more or less efficient, almost
every man is bound to the great body of the
public. The circle widens, the intimacy
strengthens as society becomes more and more
intelligent. The interest^m a family ex
tends to a tribe, from a tribe to a province,
from a province to a nation, from a nation to
mankind. And as political and Deontological
science become better understood, the depend-

168 DEONTOLOGY,

ence of every man upon the good opinion of
all besides will be increased, and the moral
sanction grow stronger and stronger. Its
strength too will be greatly heightened by a
more correct appreciation of its own power, so
that a period may be anticipated in which the
public mind will not err in its estimate of duty,
and when the moral will supersede a portion of
the political sanction.

But to be a little more particular. The influ
ence of an act upon others whose happiness is
affected by it, may be fitly considered with
reference to the particular case. It is assumed,
that a man by a blow inflicts corporal injury upon
another. He who gives the blow has, in the first
place, to apprehend retaliation in the shape
of the same or similar personal injury. This
apprehension is the physical sanction. The
political or legal sanction, the risk of the inter
ference of the magistrate, may, and probably
will apply here, though that interference can
in fact be safely grounded on no other principle
than that on which Deontology itself rests,
namely, the greatest happiness principle. But
whether or not the political or the physical
sanction are called into exertion, the moral
sanction will, at all events, be put into operation.
For, as experience and observation have taught
that such deeds of violence are the sources of

EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 169

suffering, disapprobation will have place, de
pending for its amount on the degree of suffering
inflicted. Nor can the sympathetic and social
sanction be without its effect; for though in
the rude states of society that sanction may be
so weak as to produce no restraint, and though
in every state of society it is susceptible of great
variation, as between individual and individual,

jn a period of civilization like that to which
threse thoughts are addressed, the social sanction
becomes highly operative, and it will be operative
in cases where the more general moral sanction
may sometimes fail of its effect. He who
would show indifference to the happiness of
those with whom he is wholly unconnected,
might be less disposed to show indifference to
that of his friends or family, on whom he more
immediately depends for his own happiness.
As far as it exists, though spread over a nar
rower field, the sympathetic sanction must
be stronger than the moral. For as few
persons can contemplate altogether without
uneasiness the sufferings of a fellow creature,
especially if presented in a particular manner
to their perception or imagination, still less can
they witness with indifference those of a friend.
The sense of sympathy is universal. Perhaps
there never existed a human being who had
reached full age without the experience of

170 DEONTOLOGY.

pleasure at another's pleasure, of uneasiness at
at another's pain. It may be narrowed to a
domestic circle, and that circle may be as it were
at war with mankind. Community of interest,
similarity of opinion, are sources whence it
springs. This sympathy then will operate as a
restraint against the giving pain. It will always
operate except where some stronger counter-
motive acts in a contrary direction. And all
these sanctions act with accumulating power ;
for as the mind of individual man, if looked at
from generation to generation, will be found
increasing in strength and steadiness, in the
knowledge of, and the command over its several
faculties, and in the amount of observation and
experience which it accumulates for its own use
and guidance, so it may reasonably be ex
pected, that the several sanctions which are
associated with the universal mind will obtain
more and more of their fit developement ; and so
with the species. There is a period in which
the self-regarding principle is the only one in
very active operation ; it occupies the whole
sphere of mind, scarcely going beyond the mere
physical sanction ; so that conduct is little more
than a grasping at immediate enjoyment, with
out any calculation of remote happiness or un-
happiness. This is the mere sensual state, in
close association with which come the irascible

EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 171

or dissocial affections (as they are called by
Aristotle), which, though so distinct in character,
operate towards the same end. The sensual affec
tions are checked by the operation of the iras
cible excited in those among whom the sensual
seek their gratification; by the fear of retaliation
and retribution as the natural consequences of
resentment. It has been remarked that, as in
the individual, so in society at large the affection
of sympathy is in its weakest state during the
earliest period of existence. As age and ex
perience advance it receives additional force and
efficiency. It extends its influence for the
most part with the extension of existence,
beginning with the small immediate relations
where the ties of consanguinity, affinity, domes
tic contract, or friendly intercourse, are strongest,
and advancing with experience and mental
culture into a widening field of action. Its
links become multifarious, and capable of
great extension and increase. They spread
into divers circles, domestic, social, professional,
civic, provincial, national, ultra-national, univer
sal ; some independant of and others connected
with each other. And in so much and so far as
the sympathetic affections can be called into
action, their tendencies must be to increase the
happiness of him who exercises them ; while if
these happiness-producing tendencies lead to

172 DEONTOLOGY.

no consequences of a contrary effect, or to no
consequences of equal amount, the result is a
clear accession to the general stock of happiness.
And thus even the self-regarding affection,
employed as a source of selfish enjoyment,
^brings into action a great mass of public hap
piness. The very contagion of the self-regard
ing principle is beneficent. A man witnessing
the services rendered by his neighbour, to his
neighbour's neighbour, contracts and catches,
as it were, a propensity to requite the friend
liness with his own friendliness, to bestow
upon the author of benefits, benefits like those
he has bestowed. The cheapest mode of
requital, and considering its extreme facility not
the least efficacious, is on all occasions to give to
to the benevolent affections an outward ex
pression, to bring into conversation as frequently
as practicable the language of goodwill. To
praise the virtuous doings of another man is to
dispense a positive recompense to virtue, and at
the same time to direct the popular sanction to
the encouragement of similar acts, and thus
does the principle of self produce the social
affection, and the social in its turn the popular;
and all combine together to increase the general
good.

But the sympathies excited in favor of an
individual, are they dependent on the influence

EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 173

of his actions upon the general good ? Is a man
judged of by the conduciveness of his conduct
to the public happiness ? Alas, not always, for
sympathy to a great extent, approbation to a
vast amount, have frequently been excited, not
by acts productive of good, but by acts produc
tive of evil ; not by conduct favourable to human
happiness, but detrimental and destructive to
happiness in the highest degree: — by victory
and conquest for example, by depredation,
devastation and slaughter on the widest scale,
or by the acquisition or possession of power ;
power in unbounded quantity, however obtained,
however exercised.

And even with respect to acts whose conse
quences have been in some respects beneficial to
the community, it may have happened that the
benefit was neither pure nor preponderant. Now
as the tendency of sympathy is always to produce
a repetition of the act which it approves, the
moral sanction may be misdirected to the
creation of acts pernicious on the whole to the
well-being of society. An act which in its
earliest and most obvious effects is beneficial,
may, when the whole of its effects are seen
together, and calmly calculated, be upon the
balance pernicious. So an act, whose instant
and apparent consequence is pernicious, may
upon the balance be beneficial, In both cases

174 DEONTOLOGY.

it is clear that the sympathy which should lead
to the production of the one act, and the
antipathy which would prevent the production
of the other, would be alike injurious to the
public happiness, and thence at variance with
the sound principles of morality. To detect
the fallacies which lie hid under the surface, to
prevent the aberrations of sympathy and anti
pathy, to bring to view and to call into activity
those springs of action whose operation leads
to an undoubted balance of happiness, is the
important part of moral science.

The Deontologist, it must always be remem
bered, has no coercive power, and it may perhaps
be somewhat too hastily inferred that all his
occupation will end in the putting together a
number of sentences, inoperative in their influ
ence on human conduct.

But it is presumed that three favorable
consequence, at least, may result from his
labors. Where he cannot create a motive he
may point out its existence. He may bring to
view, and show the bearing upon human
felicity, of those springs of action which form a
part of every man's mind, however hidden from
observation, or inert in operation. He may
point out consequences of action and forbear
ance which had not presented themselves to the
actor.

EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 175

Again, he may give more efficiency to the
popular moral sanction; he may proclaim its
ordinances ; and if he is unable to do this, he may
take upon himself the initiative of its laws, and
propose for public consideration appropriate
topics to aid its recognition. Motions, at least,
in favor of the public weal may emanate from
him with the chance of approving themselves to
the minds of those to whom they are addressed.

And lastly, he may influence those in whose
hands are the powers of legislation, or the
executive powers of the state, to give to the
popular sanction the stronger influence of the
political, wherever it is applicable to the pro
duction of that end, which cannot be too often
brought to view — the maximization of the public
happiness.

Intimately connected with the dictates of
prudence are those of beneficence. To a great
extent, the prudential considerations prescribe
benevolent action. The self-regarding calcula- /
tion cannot leave out of view the happiness of ^
others.

176 DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER XIII.

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE,

EFFECTIVE benevolence has been already intro
duced to notice, as consisting of two branches,
\/ the positive, or pleasure-conferring branch ; the

. negative, or that which abstains from pain-
giving to others. The word benevolence im
plies the disposition to do the acts of bene
ficence. The field of benevolence, therefore, is
co-extensive with that of beneficence ; not
that either of them has necessarily the other for
its companion ; there may be benevolence, with
out the power of bringing its impulses into
action, and there may be beneficence, without
the slightest portion of good-will.

The good produced by effective benevolence
is small in proportion to that produced by the
personal motives. The sympathetic affections
are not, cannot be, as strong as the self-regard
ing affections. The wealth transferred, the
means of subsistence circulated, the abundance
produced for the sake of others, are trifling, when
weighed against the amount of that which is

• set in motion for our own sakes. That which

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE — NEGATIVE. 177

0

is given without equivalent is little indeed as
contrasted with that which is paid for or bar
tered in the way of commerce. The voluntary
contributions to government, for the public
benefit, bear a small proportion to the sums
which are levied by compulsory requisitions.

In the eye of the sentimentalist, benevolence,
whether followed or not by beneficence, is apt
to engross the greatest portion of his favor,
and his efforts are directed to obtain for it the
greatest portion of public applause. But bene
volence is a useless tree, unless it bears the
fruits of beneficence; and feelings, by whatever
names they are called, are wholly valueless,
unless in so far as they are the prompters of
beneficent actions. Benevolence standing alone
is but the shadow of virtue ; it is only when
it becomes efficient that it partakes of the sub
stance of virtue.

To a great extent, it must be added, the
dictates of prudence prescribe the laws of effec
tive benevolence, and occupy, in mutual har
mony, the same part of the field of duty. A
man who injures himself more than he benefits
others by no means serves the cause of virtue,
for he diminishes the amount of happiness.
Benevolence, or sympathy, may be a cause of
fruitless pain, where it cannot exert itself in
acts of beneficence. It is no part of the re-

VOL. i. N

178 DEONTOLOGY.

quirements of virtue that a man should expose
himself to witness pains, on whose removal or
diminution he can exercise not any the slightest
influence. No good is done to yourself, and
none to others, by throwing yourself in the way
of suffering, unmitigable in itself, or of which
you are certain that it cannot be mitigated by
you.

Efficient benevolence is action ; it supposes
the existence of good which is susceptible of
increase, or of evil susceptible of being lessened
or removed. The life painted by the poets of
Elysium, where every man is sufficient to him
self, must be dull and dreary indeed. It must
be intolerable — it must be pure selfishness,
disassociated from benevolence. Take the ele
ments of pleasure away, and of what is left
behind you may make happiness, when you can
make a palace out of smoke and moonshine.

With a man's elevation in society, the influ
ence of his vices and virtues in society extends.
The powers of beneficence and maleficence in
crease together. The amours of Henry the
Fourth produced an incalculable mass of misery.
He made war upon Spain for the purpose of
getting hold of the wife of another. He sacri
ficed, every now and then, a portion of his
army, for the sake of having his pleasure with
his belle Gabrielle, Let those who will, give

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE — NEGATIVE. 179

their sympathy, their approbation, to such a
nuisance as this monarch was ; but why should
\ve? If he had lost an arm or a leg while
pursuing his pleasures, great would have been
the clamour, unbounded the expression of inte
rest and sympathy. His partizans lost their
lives by thousands, and what cared he ?

To the power of situation the power of intel
lect may be added, to give sanction to good
or evil. Charles the Twelfth would have been
more mischievous, had he not been mad. His
obstinacy, in doing mischief by wholesale, was
just as bad as Henry the Fourth's amours. For
selfish enjoyments in one shape, Henry sacri
ficed his thousands ; for selfish enjoyments
in another shape, Charles did the like. When
the laws of morality are understood, when the
popular sanctions become properly enlightened,
the misery-spreading freaks of monarchs will be
no longer practised on mankind.

As in the political field of action many of
the claims of prudence are under the control
of the legislator, so many of the claims of
effective benevolence scarcely belong to the
empire of the Deontologist private. It may not
be out of place, however, to remark, that
nothing but the light of utility will convey the
patriot safely through the mazes of politics.
Here, as elsewhere, the dogmatism about right

180 DEONTOLOGY.

and rights has often led men astray, confused their
honest purposes, and nullified their benevolently-
intended heroism. Opposition, revolt, may, or
may not be a public virtue. To allow of resist
ance, on the score of a greater general utility to
be obtained by resistance than by submission,
is to put a buckler in the hands of liberty. To
enjoin resistance, on the score of some imaginary
injunction of the law of nature or revelation, is
to place a torch in the hands of fanaticism.

When effective benevolence is brought into
the realms of Deontology, .when .the greatest
good, the universal happiness, is made the
central point round which all action revolvesj
the golden era of moral science will commence.
When its presence becomes universal, its influ
ence omnipresent, the demand for punishment
will be superseded, to a great extent, by the
powers of reward. No pleasure will be unne
cessarily wasted ; no pain unnecessarily inflicted.
Hitherto a feeble ray of universal benevolence
has thrown an uncertain glimmer over the field
of human action. Sometimes it has been ab
sorbed in unfruitful meditation ; at others it aas
exhaled in periodical discourse, clouded too oft
in mystery, or dispersed by the storms of selfish
passions.

The negative branch of effective benevolence
is the abstinence from action, where that absti-

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE — NEGATIVE. 181

nence either removes a pain or creates a plea
sure in the minds or persons of others. This
branch of virtue presupposes the power of
inflicting suffering or of conferring enjoyment;
and its operation is to arrest the consequence
of that disposition which, if allowed to act,
would increase the sum of misery or lessen the
sum of happiness.

Its object is to arrest the word or the deed
which would inflict evil on another, and, if
possible, to check the thought which would
create or excite the evil-inflicting or evil-intend
ing word or deed. In order to give it efficiency,
it will be well to trace up to their origin the
motives which are unfriendly to this class of
virtues. And they will be found to have their
source —

1. In the interest of self, which may on
some occasions be indeed in hostility with the
benevolent sympathies, and on such occasions
the benevolent sympathies must succumb.
There is no help for it ; they are the weaker.
Happily such cases are rare, for misery is sel
dom inflicted without a reaction on the part of
the sufferer. A man cannot hate another with
out exciting some portion of hate in return.
He cannot visit another with unfriendliness
without curtailing the friendly affections of that
other towards him. There is no voice, whether

182 DEONTOLOGY.

of malevolence or benevolence, without an echo;
no act, whether of good or evil, without a
vibration. And this brings the benevolence of
forbearance into the domains of self-regarding
prudence, to which, after all, benevolence must
make its final appeal.

2. The love of ease, heedlessness, is another
cause of the absence of the abstential principle.
There are men who will not take the trouble
of Avoiding to give pain to others. They have
no particular desire to intrude an annoyance,
but will not bestir themselves to prevent
that annoyance. Their laziness is, in a word,
stronger than their benevolence. They would
rather sleep on their pillows than rouse them
selves to exertion. They give precipitate
opinions to avoid the labors of investigation.
They do hasty deeds, as if for the very purpose of
compromising themselves. They do not choose
to ask themselves whether they ought to doubt;
still less are they willing to apply the old
aphorism — ' If you doubt, abstain.' Their love
of ease is flattered by a prompt decision— by
getting rid of a question, the discussion or
examination of which would have been a demand
on their attention. They fancy they have re
lieved themselves of an embarrassment by a
peremptory verdict.

3. The interests of pride and vanity often

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE — NEGATIVE. 183

check the dictates of abstential benevolence.
These may be called the interests of the trum
pet, in whose sounds are drowned the voice of
philanthropy.

Pride and vanity dictate dogmatism. They
assume superiority, and that superiority is
always seeking to break out into speech. In
some act of another they find cause for repre
hension. Regardless of consequences, they
reprehend.

Benevolence would ask whether the repre
hension was likely to do good either to the
reprehender or the reprehended ; but pride and
vanity are too proud and vain to seek or to take
advice from morality.

Sometimes they intrude inappropriate or ill-
timed advice. There benevolence might have
taught them to refrain. It might be a waste of
words on their part, producing on the mind
of the advised person an impression of uncom-
pen sated pain; pain far greater than the plea
sure which the pride or the vanity felt on giving
their lecture.

There are other occasions where pride and
vanity volunteer information, neither desired
nor welcomed. The information may look like
a reproach to him whom it pretends to instruct;
it often assumes the garb of assumption and

184 DEONTOLOGY.

of dogmatism. What wonder it should be
rebelled against !

In all these cases, and there are many more
such, effective benevolence puts in its veto.

4. The interests of ill-will or antipathy.
These take many forms, and require to be
doubly bridled, for they are pernicious to both
parties, and leave on every side a balance of
evil. And they are the more pernicious, be
cause they do not always exhibit the malevo
lence of their origin.

They are sometimes moved by the rival posi
tion of another. There is a clashing of interests,
producing coldness, dislike, or hatred. Hence
a desire to inflict pain upon a rival.

Ill-will may have grown out of injuries done
by another. He may have interfered with your
love of ease ; he may have wounded your pride
or your vanity; he may have wronged your
friend ; he may have misrepresented your poli
tical or religious opinions. These are no reasons
that you should do him mischief. Morality
requires, your own interest requires, that you
should forbear from doing him mischief. Cast
up the results — the pains of ill-will, the plea
sures of revenge, and then the re-action of
revenge upon yourself, and possibly upon others.
You will find the balance against you, as

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE— NEGATIVE. 185.
/

concerns your own account—the self-regarding
account; and as respects the object of your
ill-will, it is an account of suffering without
deduction.

Besides, you are giving evidence not only of
immorality, but of weakness. You have no
power over the mind of him who is obnoxious to
you : so you exhibit, at the same time, a want
of self-control and a malignity of intention, —
proofs of mental weakness and moral defects.

In difference of taste, ill-will may find ano
ther motive for acts which benevolence would
check. Such differences have often been made
the plea for words of hatred and deeds of hatred.
And into no part of the field of action has
malevolence rushed with greater malignity.
Here, especially, is there a demand for the
avoidance of pain-giving. The demand is,
indeed, everywhere where the pain-giving is
useless or baneful, and it is eminently so here,

In fine, effective benevolence, in its negative
requirements, exacts that, on all and every
occasion, the infliction of evil shall be abstained
from, except where its infliction shuts out a
greater evil, or brings with it a more than coun
terbalancing good.

Its action being the avoidance of annoyance
to others, it is important, for the correct and
complete estimate of its operation, that all the

186 DEONTOLOGY.

sources of annoyance should be studied. In
order to provide the remedy, the cause must be
known. And this is the more necessary, as
there are multitudinous evils, of whose exist
ence, or at all events of their pain-giving con
sequences, men seem to be too little aware.

Consult the various classes of pain and plea
sure ; consult their modifications ; look to the
annoyances of which the bodily senses are
susceptible, those, of course, which it does not
belong to penal legislation to visit — the pains
of privation, the pleasures of good reputation ;
in a word, the whole store-house of satisfaction
and of suffering. Take into account the general
susceptibilities of men, and, as far as can be
ascertained, the peculiar susceptibilities of the
individual.

Secondary virtues, growing out of this branch
of Deontology, are the virtues of good-breeding,
which correspond pretty nearly to that class
which the French call ' la petite morale.' / Good-
breeding is that deportment, on occasions of
inferior, and when separately taken, of trivial
importance, by which those acts are abstained
from which give annoyance to others. Where,
on similar occasions, the acts are done which
give pleasure to others, they belong to the
positive or active, not the negative or abstential
branch. But it is to the latter that most of the

EEFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE — NEGATIVE. 187

laws of good -breeding must be referred, and
here the demand for its exercise is constant,
and the field of its action wide. The most
ordinary and indispensable personal prudence
operates as a bridle upon rudeness and ill
manners. The disposition to contribute, in all
unforbidden shapes, to the gratification of others,
and to refrain from all that can annoy them, is
true politeness.

188 DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER XIV.

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE — POSITIVE.

THE negative branch of effective benevolence
comprises, as we have seen, those acts, or rather
that absence of action, by which the giving
pain to others is avoided ; the positive branch
consists of those acts by which pleasure is com
municated. This branch is far less extensive
than the other, inasmuch as the powers pos
sessed (by the majority of the community at
least) to communicate happiness to others, are
far less extensive than the powers of causing
misery to others. Nearly every man has over
nearly every other man around him the power
of inflicting injury in various forms. There are
many pains which a man can cause another to
suffer which have no corresponding pleasures
that he can offer to that other to enjoy. We
have no sense which may not be offended at the
will of another, but those senses are not equally
subject to him who seeks to gratify them against
or without our will. Any man may strike, or
wound another, but it is not the privilege of
every man to be able to add to another's happi-

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE — POSITIVE. 189

ness. The limitation of this power is the ne
cessary consequence of the fact, that man is, to
a very great extent, the creator and the guardian
of his own happiness. That portion for which
he depends on others is small — that for which
he depends only on himself is great ; and in
this power over his own happiness, that happi
ness greatly consists. Who would judge of
pains and pleasures as accurately as he who
experiences them ? Who, if it were possible,
would put the dominion of his enjoyments and
sufferings into another's hands ? To whose
never-ceasing watchfulness — to whose self-de
voted sympathies — to wrhose omniscient wis
dom, would any man give over, for a single day,
all the sources of pains and pleasures within
and without him? One moment of forgetful-
ness, one moment of malevolence, one moment
of ignorance, and the fabric of felicity might be
shattered, Happy, indeed, is it for man that
he is the master of his own well-being, and
that, with few and rare exceptions, he has no
body to thank but himself if he fail to obtain it.
But this positive effective benevolence — what
does it demand but deprivation ? In as far as
it is called into action, is it not impoverishment /
Does it not take away more than it substitutes
in return ? Not so ; for then it gets into the
regions of imprudence ; and prudence is man's

190 DEONTOLOGY.

primary virtue. Nothing is gained to happiness
if prudence loses more than benevolence wins.

There is, however, a large portion of benevo
lence which may be called into activity without
any sacrifice at all. Men there have been, and
are, who deem all services done to others as
something lost to themselves ; — a narrow and a
baneful sentiment ; for it is the lot of every one
to have the power of conferring favors at no cost
at all, or at so small a cost as not to be worth a
calculation. To make a favor of that which
should be a spontaneous, or at all events a wil
ling contribution to the happiness of another, is,
in common parlance, to give evidence of a low-
toned spirit of philanthropy, while, on the other
hand, no beneficence looks so bright in the
popular eyes, none is, in fact, so praiseworthy
as that which avoids the parade of its sacrifices.
And the popular sanction is here in accordance
with the Deontological principle.

Benevolence and beneficence are maximized
when, at the least expence to himself, a man
produces the greatest quantity of happiness to
others. To lose sight of his own happiness
would not be virtue, but folly. His own hap
piness forms, or ought to form, as large a por
tion of the whole mass of happiness spread
among the community, as does the happiness of
any other individual.

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE — POSITIVE, 191

Now, suppose any man to confer upon others
a smaller portion of happiness than he himself
sacrificed — that is, suppose him, in order to
give a certain amount of pleasure to another, to
give up a greater amount of pleasure of his
own, this would not be virtue — it would be
folly. It would not be effective benevolence, it
would be miscalculation ; by it the whole amount
of happiness would clearly be diminished.

This, indeed, is a course of action which
could not intentionally have place. No sane
person wastes, or desires to waste, happiness,
still less his own happiness.

Every man's necessary impulse is towards
the economy of happiness. If he made a sacri
fice of his own happiness to the happiness of
others, it could by possibility be in no other in
terest than that of economy ; for unless in some
shape or other he derived more pleasure from
the sacrifice than he expected to derive in ab
staining from making the sacrifice, he would
not, he could not make it. Suppose other plea
sures equal — that is, the pleasures sacrificed
and the pleasures conferred — suppose nothing
is lost in the transfer, then come the pleasures
of sympathy, pleasures which form as large a
portion of a man's happiness as any merely
self-regarding pleasure. They turn the scale ;
and of their magnitude the man who seeks

192 '. DEONTOLOGY.

them is the most competent, not to say the only
judge.

His miscalculation does not alter the ques
tion. The province of Deontology is to teach
him a proper arithmetic, is to lay before him a
fit estimate of pain and pleasure — a budget of
receipt and disbursement, out of every opera
tion of which he is to draw a balance of good.

And here, be it remarked by the way, that
tne Deontological teacher, whether engaged in
discourse or in writing, is himself an example
of the application of the principle of positive
effective benevolence. Let his exertions be en
couraged by the thought, that he is perhaps
producing more happiness at less expense than
could be produced by any other means. At a
cost of a few well-timed words is he not ex
panding the domains of happiness ? Are not
the truths, which he circulates at the waste of
a little breath, or at the trouble of recording
them on the permanent tablets of the press, are
they not likely to extend the dominions of
felicity into regions bounded only by that por
tion of infirmity which must hang about the
destinies of mortal man ? It is a positive act
of effective benevolence to sow seeds of useful
fruits, or beautiful flowers, where none were
ever sown before ; but how much more effi
ciently benevolent is he who sows those seeds

EFFECTIVE BENEVOLENCE POSITIVE. 193

out of which happiness directly springs — hap
piness prolific, multiform, permanent.

Nor let it be forgotten that, in proportion to
the poverty of the receiver, will be the value of
the gift conferred. The greater the want, the
greater the boon will be. Now certain it is
that erroneous standards of action have pro
duced much moral poverty, much misery in the
world — poverty and misery which the intelli
gent moralist is called upon to remove. What
higher mission than his? What nobler pursuit?
Rendering services of incalculable value to
others, he establishes a claim — a claim which
will be felt to be irresistible — of other services
to be rendered to himself in return. He exer
cises power, in itself a source of pleasure, — that
power, of all power the most delightful, the
power of beneficence. He exercises it towards
all, without distinction or exception.

In this there is no sacrifice, no sacrifice of
self-regarding interest ; and by these and simi
lar means every man may advance the progress,
and accelerate the triumphs of happiness.
Every man has more or less of time on his
hands. On many hands how heavily it hangs !
Would they improve it, would they enjoy it?
Let them engage it in beneficence !

The field of beneficence is the whole world,
those parts of it more particularly in which a

VOL. i. o

194 DEONTOLOGY.

man exercises his peculiar influence— whether
personal, domestic, or social. The occasions
it may find for its exercise are somewhat de
pendent on these influences. Towards inferiors
and equals the occasions are permanent, towards
superiors transitory. In the practical part of
these volumes, these relations will come particu
larly under review.

ANALYSIS OF VIRTUES AND VICES. 195

CHAPTER XV.

ANALYSIS OF VIRTUES AND VICES.

THE ground has now been cleared, and the
foundation laid for the moral edifice. What
remains to be done is, to sweep away the
surrounding rubbish, or to take from the ruins
such portions as will assist the builder in the
erection of the temple of virtue. Wherever
prudence presents itself, wherever effective
benevolence presents itself, they will be rescued
from the huge heaps which have hitherto en
cumbered the ground of ethics. Where neither
of these is discoverable, let who will turn the
impostor virtue to account. No acceptance
will it find here.

And so as to vice. No quarrel have we with
any action that neither injures the actor himself,
nor any body else; in a word, that takes nothing
away from happiness; still less with any action,
which, be it called by what name it may, leaves
a balance of enjoyment on the whole.

Virtues and vices are voluntary habits. If

N / they are not voluntary, the words of the moralist

might as well be flung to the winds. To the

196 DEONTOLOGY.

*"-

two branches of virtue, prudence and bene
volence, correspond two branches of vices ; —
Imprudence, the vice in a man which is primarily
hurtful to himself, — Improbity, the vice which
is hurtful primarily to others.

It matters little in what order the seHVcalled
virtues or vices present themselves. There is
no marshalling them ; they are susceptible of no
arrangement; they are a disorderly body, whose
members are frequently in hostility with one
another. Most of them consist of a portion of
good, a portion of evil, and a portion of matter
indifferent, Most of them are characterised by
that vagueness which is a convenient instrument
for the poetical, but dangerous or useless to the
practical moralist.

The three commonly called cardinal virtues,
however, naturally present themselves first to
the mind.

To what action does the praise of fortitude com
monly attach ? To that by which a man volun
tarily exposes himself to a danger he might have
avoided, — to danger, to bodily pain, to death.

In proportion to the magnitude of the danger
— to the intensity and duration of the pain, or
the probability of death, is he considered to
possess the virtue of fortitude.

Is it desirable for the ultimate good of society
that he should so expose himself? In this is

FORTITUDE. 197

the measure of all merit. Will he advance his
own well-being or the well-being of others ? If
the two interests, his own and that of others
are incompatible, to which is it desirable the
preference should be given? This may be
difficult, but too difficult to know, yet this is
something to be known, and if it can be known
it is well worth knowing.

The thing to be purchased is benefit to a man
himself or to others. The danger to which he is -i \
exposed is the price he would pay for the bene- . * ^
fit. Is the benefit worth the cost ? This is the
question, the only question deserving an inquiry
or a thought. Whether his exposing himself .
to the supposed danger is an act of fortitude or ^
not, is a query not worth the words expended
in the proposing it.

And the question is not merely useless, it is
positively pernicious ; for such questions only
throw men's ideas into confusion, entangle their
minds in irrelevant discussions, and lead them
away from the proper, the only proper topic of
inquiry, namely, the union between interests
and duties.

Now, — suppose an act injurious to those inter
ests, and that this act is understood to merit the
appellation of fortitude. What is the practical
consequence ? That fortitude, being a virtue, the
injurious act is that which ought to be done.

98 DEONTOLOGY.

And suppose the line of conduct most condu
cive to the general happiness, not to deserve the
appellation of fortitude ? What then ? Why if
fortitude be a virtue, the act which most pro
motes the general happiness must be an act of
folly or of vice.

Wonderful is the absurdity, dense the blind
ness, palpable the self-contradiction of the
Oxford Instructor on the subject of Fortitude.
According to him, on what does it depend?
On the magnitude of the pain which a man
continues to endure ? No such thing. On the
magnitude of the danger, that is, the eventual
suffering to which he voluntarily exposes him
self? No, not that. Upon what then ? Upon
the nature of the occasion on which the suffering
is endured or the danger incurred. If the occasion
is approved by the Instructor, there shall be
fortitude ; if the occasion have the ill-fortune not
to have his sanction, no fortitude shall there be,

In battle or otherwise, a man risks, or even
loses his life. Was he a brave man ? Was his
act an act of fortitude? Go and ask the
Instructor, and he will not tell you till he knows
on which side he fought. Inform me, he will
say, of the occasion of his death. If I approve
of the occasion, then it is an act of fortitude ;
if not, not.

The Instructor makes four special and un-

FORTITUDE. 199

doubted exceptions, — self-slayers, duellists,
robbers, and men who devote themselves to
danger or death in defence of their liberty.
These are not men of fortitude ; their doings
deserve not any of its praise.

A man who puts an end to his own existence,
cannot be a man of fortitude. Would you
know why ? Because suicide is unlawful.

A man who slays another, or is slain by
another in a duel, cannot be a man of fortitude.
Why ? Because he ought not to have
fought.

A man dies defending his own liberty ; he
must be a coward; justice was not on his side.

A robber plays the hero. Is he a courageous
man ? Not he ; for what business had he to be
on the highway?

But if consistency were looked for, if in ortho
dox or fashionable faith, nonsense were an impe
diment to the reception of that faith, one might
suggest that it would be well to apply the princi
ple to practice. Among the whole tribe of con
querors, where would the man of fortitude be
found ? Your Alexanders, your Caesars, your
Ghenghis Khans, your Napoleons, what were
they all? Any thing but men of fortitude.

When the protection afforded to absurdity is
such that no one dares open his mouth against
it,— its march is bold and imposing. You may

200 DEONTOLOGY.

grant or deny, at your pleasure, the praise
of fortitude to those who X'oluntarily thrust
themselves upon danger or death; they shall
be called brave men, or cowards according to
your bidding.

Temperance has for its object the pleasures
of sense. Though commonly used to express
abstinence from the enjoyments of one or two
of the senses, there seems no sufficient reason
for such a limitation to the term. The question
of virtue must be decided by the influence
of the enjoyments of sense on ourselves and
others.

Intemperance, when mischievous to a man
himself, is a breach of prudence ; when mis
chievous to others, it is a breach of benevo
lence. Preponderant enjoyment, or preponder
ant suffering, is the only standard by which
the moral merits of fruition can be estimated.
Abstinence, which leaves no balance of plea
sure, partakes not of the character of virtue ;
enjoyment, which leaves no balance of pain,
cannot justly be stigmatised with the reproach
of vice.

There exists in the world a great unwilling
ness to allow a man to be the curator of his
own pleasures ; there is a vehement disposition
to decide on what, in the breast of another man,
may be allowed to be a pleasure, and what not.

TEMPERANCE. 201

;

The words impropriety, unlawfulness, and such
like, are flung at particular actions, in order to
excite odium, as if they were evidence of de
pravity ; such words being, in fact, only a part
and portion of that phraseology, by which a
man seeks to shelter his own dogmatism from
the analysis which the doctrines of utility would
apply to it.

Prudence and effective benevolence, it cannot
be too often repeated, being the only two intrin
sically useful virtues, all other virtues must
derive their value from them, and be subservient
to them.

Is justice, then, a subservient and inferior
virtue ? And if so, to which is it subordinate ?
Before the art of logic was understood, and
especially before the business of arrangement,
in any thing like correctness or completeness,
was accomplished, ideas respecting virtue, and
names designating those ideas, were introduced.
The relations between virtue and virtue were
vague and obscure ; the descriptions of them
confused — the points of coincidence and of dif
ference indeterminate or undetermined. Logic
ally speaking, they were disparate ; mathernatic-
allj^speaking, they were incommensurable.

/Of the virtues, the Aristotelians introduced
the definitions and classification we have seen.
Of these virtues several have been divided into

202 DEONTOLOGY.

•

species. But, on examination, it will be found
that under the same generic names virtues are
classed which have no assignable relation to
each other ; and some, in which the character
of the genus under which they are arranged is
not discoverable. The modifications put forward
under the head of one virtue, not unfrequently
belong to another, and on a glance at the whole,
tlie appearance is one of strange entanglement
and perplexity. Though the Linnaeus of Natu
ral History has appeared in the world, and
restored its chaos into order and harmony, the
Linnaeus of Ethics is yet to come.

Justice, under the system of utility, is a
modification of benevolence ; it belongs to the
present work wherever the political sanction, or
the power of the law does not apply ; it be
longs to it wherever the sanction of moral obli
gation is unenforced by penal visitation.

The inadequacy and imperfection of the poli
tical or legal sanction is experienced in a con
siderable part of the field of morality, and a
demand will be created for the dictates of the
moral sanction, as guided by utility, in the fol
lowing cases : —

Where the legal sanction is silent, or, in other
words, makes no provision for the case in point.
Where the legal sanction is inconsistent with,
or opposed to the greatest happiness principle.

JUSTICE. 203

Where the dictates of the legal sanction are
confused, or unintelligible.

Where they are impracticable.

In all these cases, the dictates of justice will
be the dictates of benevolence, and the dictates
of benevolence the dictates of utility.

It would assist clearness of conception, if the
word probity could take place of the term jus
tice, with which it is pretty completely synony
mous ; at least, if there be a difference, it is
rather grammatical than ethical ; for though a
man says with propriety, I will do you justice,
he cannot say, I will do you probity, though
every act of injustice done would be an act of
improbity, and, conversely, every act of impro
bity an act of injustice.

The word j ustice is clogged with other signi
fications, which render it less efficient as an
ethical term. It may, for example, be employed
as a substitute for the term judicature. He by
whom the powers of judicature are adminis
tered, is said to administer justice. But on
such an occasion it is never said that he admin
isters probity, nor does the association of pro
bity necessarily attach to the phrase.

Hence a great evil, and a source of error ; for
if, in the exercise of his office, he be most truly
and manifestly chargeable with improbity, not
the less will the language be employed that he

204 DEONTOLOGY.

administers justice. The improbity will still be
clothed in the garb of justice. Himself and his
friends will say he administers justice, and it
will be a matter of great difficulty and perplex
ity for those who think ill of him to impugn the
phraseology. Yet by no one will he be said to
administer probity, scarcely by any one will it
be said that he exercises probity. This is one
of the thousand cases in which vague and unde
fined expressions become places of shelter for
insincerity and immorality.

The pleasures and pains of amity are those of
the popular or moral sanction, in miniature ; — in
the one case their source is a determinate indi
vidual, in the other an indefinite multitude.

When is it desirable that the pleasures of
amity should be reaped ? Whenever they may
be reaped without the production of preponder
ant evil, — without violation of the laws of self-
regarding prudence. To what length may their
pursuit be carried ? To exactly the length
which is consistent with the cardinal virtues of
prudence and benevolence, and it will be found
that between these and the pleasures and pains
of amity there is rarely any competition.
/ To obtain the favor — the amity of another, the
obvious course is to do him services — these ser
vices limited only by the considerations of bene
volence and prudence^ The limits which effec-

AMITY. 205

tive benevolence applies to the exercise of amity
are the same as apply to the pursuit of wealth.
If the services derived from him whose amity
you court be the conferring on you a portion of
wealth, — the pursuit of wealth is the pursuit of
amity : and in precisely so far as the pursuit of
wealth, with the enjoyments and exemptions de
rivable from it, is repugnant to benevolence, so
is the pursuit of amity.

The pleasures derivable from this pursuit have
this distinctive and interesting character : — that
prudence and benevolence are almost equally
concerned in their production.

For however selfish the desire may be, — how
ever unrelieved by the social sympathy, the
effects of it are not the less purely beneficial to
the parties concerned. The interest of him who
courts the amity of another, may be served or
not served as may happen — the person courted
has his interest served to an extent nearly
equal to that he would have obtained for
himself if he had himself sought the pleasure
conferred. And though it is not sympathy, —
not benevolence that has produced the pleasure,
yet it is not the less produced — and thus the
good, though not arising from a primary virtue,
is as valuable as if it arose from it. The sole
value of benevolence itself consists in its ten
dency and aptitude to produce beneficence,

206 DEONTOLOGY.

and no evil can grow from the excess of the
friendly affections, except when they interfere
with the primary virtues.

Proportioned to the value of the services which
a man is deemed able and willing to confer on
others, will be the number of competitors in
those services. In this, as in every other case,
competition may produce jealousy, and each
competitor who is believed to have obtained a
greater share than another, may be to that other
an object of envy. This envy will endeavor
to produce a reaction of ill-will on the person who
is the object of envy, and one of its immediate
effects, will be to lower the envied receiver of
favors, in the eyes of him who confers them.

Nevertheless, there exists a tribunal, that
which deals out the decisions of good repute,
or general esteem, before which this contention
for benefits is always carried on; and every
man is a member of this tribunal who chooses to
take a part in its awards. Before this tribunal
every man who seeks to detract from the merits
of another man acts the part of an informer;
and his conduct is usually attributed to a sin
ister and disreputable motive. Be his motives
what they may, dishonorable or dislogistic
phrases will probably attach to his conduct, and
thus the popular sanction be brought to bear
upon the self-regarding impulse.

AMITY. 207

Servility is one of the terms most commonly
employed on these occasions. Its synonymes and
quasi-synonymes are very numerous, and the im
pression it conveys is of an exceedingly vague
and indeterminate character.

So much the worse ; no precise idea being
attached to it, the accusation becomes the more
impressive. If closely looked to, it will be
found to mean the habit of rendering to a supe
rior, services which, according to the received
notions of propriety, ought not to be rendered.
As a rule of conduct, the so often repeated prin
ciple of balancing pleasures and pains will apply
here, as every where.

To render to every man every possible ser
vice, where neither prudence nor benevolence
has aught to object, is the obvious dictate and
duty of beneficence ; and in the case before us,
the dictates of benevolence are in their full force
without any counteracting or diminishing force
on the side of prudence.

But here, as on most other occasions, are two
sets of antagonizing forces, the impelling and the
restraining ; the only limits to the proper influ
ence of the compelling force being that which
is exercised by the restraining power.

The virtue of beneficence, though its objects
embrace all mankind, can be exercised to a very
limited extent, and as applied to any single indi-

208 DEONTOLOGY,

vidual yet narrower is its sphere of action. And
this is well ; for if every man were disposed to
sacrifice his own enjoyments to the enjoyments
of others, it is obvious the whole sum of enjoy
ment would be diminished — nay destroyed. The
result would not be the general happiness, but
the general misery. Prudence therefore sets
its limits to benevolence, and those limits do not,
on ordinary occasions, embrace a large space.

In the case before us, /prudence so far from
prohibiting, prescribes the obligation of render*
ing services to the superior — services in the ut
most quantity that can be rendered under a
sufficient assurance that the value of the ser
vices received in return will not be less than that
of the suffering, self-denial, or sacrifice in
curred, in order to obtain them. Prudence
makes a sort of commercial bargain — the sort of
bargain on which all commerce is founded.
The expenditure is expected to bring back
something more than its cost.^ No outlay is
detrimental that returns an equivalent — no ex-
pence fails to be beneficial, which brings back
an equivalent and something more.

Here then is prudence acting in two directions
— prescribing expenditure, in as far as it pro
mises a beneficial return, inhibiting expenditure
where the beneficial return cannot be reasonably
anticipated. But here, as elsewhere, no law of

AMITY. 209

benevolence must be violated while prudence
seeks the beneficial return in question.

And how are the dictates of self- regarding
prudence to be ascertained ? by what are they
determined ? By the balance of an account em
bracing the different heads under which plea
sures and pains are capable of being arranged.
Prudence on all occasions supposes and requires
the sacrifice of pleasures and exemptions on the
one hand, to pleasures and exemptions on the
other. Between the rival amounts the decision
must lie, and the decision of wisdom must be
with the larger of the two.

In the present case the rivalry is between the
pleasures of amity and the pains of the popular
sanction. There are certain services rendered by
which a man exposes himself to the loss of repu
tation, even services which are by no means
inconsistent with the primary virtues. Fashion
makes multitudinous exceptions which it would
be difficult to get confirmed by any correct views
of the demands of prudence and benevolence.
In different stages of civilization these exceptions
have undergone many modifications. The higher
the scale of rank, — the greater the distance be
tween the most elevated and the least elevated
spheres, — the less has fashion introduced of
restraint. In proportion as equality takes pos
session of society is the latitude allowed to such

VOL. I. P

210 DEONTOLOGY.

services diminished, and the restrictions upon
them increased. Going back into the field of
time, we shall find that deportment, and espe
cially in language, was in use, of a character so
obsequious, that it would not now be tolerated
at all — that habits of submission and expressions
of humiliation were then deemed proper — pru
dent — and even demanded by good breeding,
which now would be placed to the account of
servility, meanness, and even baseness, and
draw down on him who should venture to use
them a full measure of popular contempt. Go
forth into the field of space ; visit any Maho-
medan — any oriental nation. In these countries,
under their governments, the distance between
the highest and the lowest degree is almost infi
nite, and between the different degrees enormous.
Thus no measure of obsequiousness is out of
place — none is checked by opinion. To those
in the lower ranks self-abasement is self-preser
vation, and the most prostrate servility is de
manded by prudence.

Bending, or as the phrase is, cringing or fawn
ing to his superior, the same man is stiff, and
even insolent to his inferior. It is an every day
case and a very natural one ; for the suffering to
which he subjects himself in the one case, he
seeks to counterbalance by enjoyments of the
same character in the other. But by thus gra-

PRIDE AND VANITY. 211

tifying his pride he provokes enmity, and through
enmity ill offices, and through ill offices suffering
in all imaginable shapes. Is he on the whole
a gainer by this indulgence ? That will depend
partly on his idiosyncratic taste, and partly upon
accident.

Pride and vanity are dispositions of mind not
necessarily or even ordinarily manifested by sin
gle acts. So intimate is the relation between
pride and vanity, that to uncover them together
is likely to facilitate correct ideas of both. Both
are the desire of esteem, taking somewhat dif
ferent directions, and employing different means
of gratification. To the proud man and the vain
man the esteem of those on whom they believe
their well-being to depend, is the common
object of pursuit.

And in both cases the important question is, —
This pride, this vanity, — is it of the nature of
virtue, or of vice ? If of virtue, of what virtue ?
— if of vice, of what vice ?

In the proud man, the desire of esteem is
accompanied with contempt, or disesteem for
those whose esteem he desires to obtain. In
the vain man this is not the case.

The value of the esteem being less in the
eyes of the proud than of the vain man, a
greater portion of that esteem is required to
give the proud man equal gratification with that

212 . DEONTOLOGY.

which the vain man would receive from a lesser
portion. And thus the state of the proud man's
mind is generally that of dissatisfaction — a dis-
,?atisfaction which may be read even in his
countenance.

Melancholy and malevolence, one or both, are
thence the usual companions of pride, sometimes
a(Hing as causes, sometimes as effects of pride,
sometimes in both characters. Hilarity, on the
contrary, is the common accompaniment of
vanity — hilarity and oftentimes benevolence.
From a small manifestation of esteem, vanity re
ceives a great gratification ; and the smaller the
manifestation the more easily obtained ; hence
the more frequently, and the more frequently,
the more frequent are the causes of exhili-
ration.

Pride is naturally conjoined with taciturnity ;
vanity with talkativeness. The proud man sits
still and waits for those demonstrations of esteem
which he desires to obtain. Their value to him
depends on their being spontaneous. He will
not call, or at least will not appear to call for
them ; he will rather tarry for their arrival, and
thus must possess the faculty of self-command
to enable him to do so. Esteem is the food he
hungers for, and his meal must be a full one —
but he is able to fast.

Not so the vain man. His appetite is still

PRIDE AND VANITY. 213

keener than that of the proud man. No quan
tity of its food will definitely satiate it, though
a small quantity will gratify, and for a time will
satisfy it. He therefore goes from door to door
and at every door craves those supplies for
which he has a perpetually self-renewing hun
ger.

Taken by itself, pride is scarcely ever used
but in a bad sense, as descriptive of vice ; with
an adjunct it may be used in a good sense,
and become a virtue. Witness honest, becom
ing, dignified pride. But even here a feeling
attaches to it, that such phraseology is not
strictly proper, and a sense of something figu
rative or rhetorical hangs about it.

But as for the adjective proud, when applied
to a man, the idea it conveys is unfavorable.
When proud is employed to denote the cast of
a man's mind, intimation is given that that part
of his mind is vicious.

A proud day, a proud situation, may be used;
and thus, indirectly, you may connect a man
with an event, and disconnect him from the idea
of vicious pride.

Vanity is still worse dealt with. It can hardly
be ascribed to a man without making him the
object of contempt and derision, and a fit object
too. It would scarcely be possible to speak,
certainly it would not be possible to speak
with propriety, of honest, becoming, dignified

214 DEONTOLOGY.

vanity. A proud day you may have, and think
well of such a day ; but you could not do so,
were you to call it a vain day.

But for practical purposes, the great object
is to distinguish what there is of virtue and
what of vice in these qualities of pride and
vanity. If there be virtue, it is prudence, bene
volence, or beneficence. If there be vice, it
belongs either to imprudence or maleficence.
And thus, and for the first time, perhaps, shall
we find clear ideas attaching to appellations
which are, every day in the year, in the mouth
of every body.

Were the principles of morality thoroughly
understood and obeyed ; in other words, were
the popular sanction in every respect that which,
for the interests of mankind, it is desirable it
should become, any portion remaining of pride
would not be in the nature of vice. But as it
is, where public opinion has not utility for its
foundation, pride must frequently be classified
among vices.

The quantity of virtue or of vice growing out
of pride and vanity, seems to depend in some
manner on the station occupied in the scale
of society by the proud or vain man. In the
station of the ruling few, pride is more likely to
dispose the mind to vice than to virtue ; but not
so vanity.

Pride, when it runs into vice, is the charac-

PRIDE AND VANITY. 215

teristic vice of the ruling orders, they being,
from their situation, less dependent than other
men on spontaneous services; to a man so
elevated, spontaneous services from others be
come comparatively objects of indifference, and
he is consequently indisposed to obtain those
services at the cost of any services rendered by
himself, even the inexpensive services of urban
ity. Pride, therefore, in such elevated situations,
draws men away from benevolence and bene
ficence, and presents these virtues as rivals to
the self-regarding interest.

Vanity suggests another course. Its ever-
craving appetite demands continued services,
the services which manifest esteem. And here
its tendency is towards benevolence. Thus acts
seemingly benevolent, acts bearing upon them
the impress of social sympathy, whether reflec
tive or sentimental, may have their source in
the self-regarding affection of vanity. The
acts being produced, the object is gained to
human happiness. Will not vanity, then, an
swer the purposes of utility, by producing the
good which utility proposes as its end ? No !
not unless opinion, not unless the popular
sanction be, on all points, in accordance with
the teachings of utility.

But the display of vanity, on whatever titles
to esteem it be founded, produces competition,

216 DEONTOLOGY.

increasing with the increase of that esteem of
which display is made, and this competition
produces uneasiness.£jVanity in one breast calls
into existence, and thence into action, the
emotions, the affections, the passions of envy
and jealousy, in many breastslj

In elevated life, the higher a man's station
the less likely is it to awaken envy or jealousy
on the part of the subject many ; for envy and
jealousy can hardly exist except where com
petition exists, and the greater the distance
between rank and rank, the less room is there
for competition.

At the same time, the higher a man's station
the wider is the field in which he can exercise
his beneficence; and in so far as,/ by acts of
beneficence, his vanity seeks its gratification,/
the esteem which he obtains serves to counter
balance, if not to outweigh, the pains and dan
gers which are produced by the envy and
jealousy of others, whether as acting upon him,
or upon those in whose minds the envy and
jealousy have place.

The effect will be different among the subject
many ; for as the power of beneficence is less,
the envy and jealousy will be greater. Here
the assumption of superiority, under the influ
ence of vanity, will be more offensive, and
* the best wrestler on the green' may excite

PRIDE AND VANITY, 217

feelings of envy and jealousy in the breasts of
all the other wrestlers, while he can produce
no counterbalancing pleasure. Pain he may
clearly awaken ; but what sensible addition to
happiness can he make to the happiness of any
individual not comprised within his own domes
tic circle ?

The vain man exaggerates to himself the
value of the services of others, and is occupied
in undue exertions to obtain them. The proud
man diminishes, to his own mind, the value
of the services of others, and measures his right
to claim them by the inverse ratio of his need
of them, — of the esteem in which he holds
them. Activity is the companion of vanity ;
immobility of pride. Every addition to the
affection of vanity adds something to the power
of sympathy towards others. Every addition
to the affection of pride excludes a portion of
sympathy towards others.

Yet the denial of the good offices sought will
awaken the hostility both of the proud and the
vain man. The proud man's hostility will be
more open, undisguised, and conspicuous. He
gives you to understand that he cares not
whether your dispositions towards him be
friendly or adverse. His importance is such,
that, from respect or fear, others are engaged to
render him the services, or more services, than

218 DEONTOLOGY.

you can offer him : but the vain man appears
to exercise no despotism over you in order to
obtain your good-will ; the greater his vanity,
the greater his desire, the more strenuous his
efforts to secure it.

Pride is thus accompanied with a sense of
independence ; vanity, not. The proud man is
persuaded that he shall receive from others as
much respect as he stands in need of; he there
fore will not take the trouble of courting them,
that is, of employing exertion in order to admi
nister to their gratification. He will not, him
self, put forward the titles he believes himself
to possess to their esteem. He assumes that
they are obvious, and will be recognized as
a matter of course. In as far as he succeeds,
his pride conveys to the minds of others a sense
of his own importance; he causes them to
think that, in some way or other, their comfort
depends upon his favor, which favor, he would
have them believe, is difficult to gain. Hence,
on their part, there exists towards him a sort
of fear — the fear of not being able to gain it.
Now this fear is necessarily attended with
suffering. Of this suffering he has himself a
perception, yet will not do what depends upon
him to remove or to lessen it. By mixing
condescension with his pride, he might lessen
it. By laying aside his pride, and dealing with

PRIDE AND VANITY. 219

them on a footing of equality, he might remove
it altogether.

On the whole, then, vanity is more nearly
allied to benevolence ; pride to self-regard and
malevolence.

The vain man, feeling himself comparatively
ill-assured of the esteem he desires, is propor
tionally anxious to do his best to obtain it;
he endeavors to display those qualities which
are likely to win it ; and seeking to gather the
good-will of others, he must sow the seeds
which produce it. And the object of the dis
play he makes will usually be, in some degree
at least, effected. He will excite some admi
ration; admiration brings surprise, surprise
awakens curiosity, in whose gratification there
is pleasure.

There are two causes, however, by which
this effect is liable, not only to be counteracted
and diminished, but even to be reversed. First,
Vwhen the superiority displayed is such as to
produce humiliation, or a painful sense of infe
riority, in the breasts of those before whom
the display is made ; and, secondly, this effect
will be heightened if the endowment displayed
be one in which" any particular competition
exists between the persons exhibiting it, and
him before whom it is exhibited.]

When this is the case, both prudence and

220 DEONTOLOGY.

benevolence concur in recommending that the
exhibition should be abstained from ; prudence,
becausej,hej>assions of envy and jealousy will
awaken ill-will towards himself.; ill-will, tend
ing to ill offices or to the abstinence from
friendly offices ; and benevolence, because the
exhibition will produce pain in the breast of
another.

Associated with the subject of pride are many
terms, the value and bearing of which can
only be determined by the application of the
great principles so constantly brought forward
in this volume. Meanness has for its opposite
not so much pride as a compound appellation —
elevation of mind — high-mindedness. But there
is, and must be, much of indistinctness in these
qualities. Pride, separately taken, is rather
dyslogistic ; high-mindedness, eulogistic. So
again, humility is supposed to be creditable ;
meanness discreditable. And the obscurity is
much increased by the sense which has been
given to these terms by writers on religion.
Independence of mind is another term suscep
tible of very different interpretations. The rule,
the test, the standard, must be the conducive-
ness of these qualities, in every particular case,
to happiness, the happiness of the individual
and of the rest of mankind. Every thing else
is a mere fruitless question about words, of no

ENVY AND JEALOUSY. 221

practical, no real importance ; a question as
to phrases whose meanings are perpetually
liable to change and perpetually changing ; and
whose discussion, unless with a reference to
some rule of right and wrong, is mere waste of
time and labor.

CEor~the purpose of exposition, then, as well
as for the purposes of instruction, the sole
effective mode is to ascertain the association of
moral terms with the terms of pain and plea
sure. Apply any other test to vanity, apply
any other test to pride, and it will be seen,
that to their import and their value this is the
only key. And what is true here is true in
every other part of the moral region.

Envy and jealousy are neither virtues nor
vices.

They are pains.

Envy is pain emanating from the contempla
tion of pleasure possessed by another, especially
when that pleasure is derived from a source
'whence the envious person desired to derive it ;
if the desire was accompanied with the expec
tation that it would have been so derived, the
pain becomes stronger still ; and strongest of
all when he supposes that the possession of the
pleasure by another has led to his exclusion
from it.

222 DEONTOLOGY.

Jealousy is "pain — the pain of apprehension
derived from the same or a similar cause.

Prudence and benevolence are equally con
cerned in suppressing both envy and jealousy :
prudence, for the purpose of ridding ourselves
of the pains they cause us ; benevolence, inas
much as envy and jealousy are associated with
the, desire to rid ourselves of the pains they
create, by evil deeds to others. Envy and
jealousy are very closely allied to, and very
instrumental in creating maleficent dispositions,
and thence maleficent actions. The disposition,
without the action, is indeed not a vice ; it is
an infirmity ; but infirmity is a soil in which
vice is very easily planted, and in which it
very luxuriantly grows.

HUME'S VIRTUES. 223

CHAPTER XVI.

HUME'S VIRTUES.

BUT, (inj)rder to discover how vague are the
ideas of virtue, and how unsatisfactory the
definitions, even emanating from jninds of high
intellectual capacity, where the standard of
virtue has either not been discovered^ or not
employed, it will be well worth whilerieven at
the expense of some repetition, jtp go over jthe
ground, f accompanied by Mr Hume's list of
virtues ; and, upon a close examination, we shall
learn how easily a scene of confusion, entan
glement, and perplexity, may be reduced to
order, harmony, and beauty, by the instruments
which, in the shape of prudence and bene
volence, utility has put into our hands. And
this course seems the more desirable, because
it is not long since |the Edinburgh Reviewers,
in calling attention to Hume's classification of
the virtues, seemed to consider that he had
done every thing which it was necessary to do,
in order to introduce a perfect moral system, j

There is a fundamental objection to his clas
sification of the virtues into useful and agreeable

224 DEONTOLOGY.

qualities. Useful is here altogether ambiguous;
it may mean conducive to pleasure — it may
mean conducive to any other end. Usefulness
has no value, but in so far as it is pleasure-
producing or pain-preventing, leading, on the
whole, to a balance of happiness, calculated
not only out of the pleasure which is adjacent,
but of that which is remote ; not only out of
present, but of future pleasure. Strange indeed
is it that moralists are so afraid of the word
pleasure ; the thing itself — the enjoyment, the
happiness — they do indeed profess to pursue ;
but called by its own name — its proper, its
essential name — they run away from it, they
refuse to grasp it; any nonsense, any confusion,
rather than the name of pleasure.

It may be said that Hume does not employ
the word virtue as the genus generalissimum,
and that thence his discernment is not impli
cated by the fact that some of his virtues have,
in reality, no virtue in them.

But if virtue do not mean something that is
useful, or productive of that which is useful for
the increase of well-being, what does it mean ?
What is its value?

In the very constitution of virtue, it must be
admitted there is evil— some suffering, some
self-denial, some sacrifice of good, and conse
quent uneasiness — but as the practice of virtue

HUME'S VIRTUES. 225

grows into a habit, the uneasiness becomes
less and less, and at last may vanish altogether,

(Virtue is a moral quality, in contradistinction
to an intellectual quality: it belongs to the
will — to the affections — not to the understand
ing, except in as far as the understanding acts
upon the volition. And this premised, a correct
estimate of Hume's desirable qualities may be
much assisted by distinguishing and grouping
them under the following heads : —

First. Qualities not belonging to the will, but
to the understanding, such as discretion, order,
quickness of conception.

Second. Qualities of the will, the quality
being neither a virtue nor a vice exclusively,
but either a virtue or a vice, or neutral, accord
ing to the object towards which it is directed,
as sociability, secrecy, constancy, mercy, gene
rosity.

Third. Qualities which are always virtues,
and consequently belonging to one of the two
classes, prudence or benevolence.

Fourthly. Qualities which are always virtues
• — modifications of, or subordinate to the two
primary classes — such as honesty, justice.

Now it is really only in the third and fourth
classes that the virtues, the undoubted virtues,
are to be found. Qualities there are, in the
first and second class, which, when associated

VOL. T. Q

226 DEONTOLOGY.

with prudence and benevolence, may be highly
important auxiliaries. That tact, for example,
which has the gift of following actions to their
consequences, and which is sometimes called
the virtue of discretion, how invaluable may
not its co-operation be in the moral field ? So
the alliance of a sociable spirit with prudence
and benevolence, naturally gives to each of them
an attraction which must add to their beneficial
influences; but, at the same time, who fails
to see that the quality called discretion depends
much on mental organization, — that no efforts
will introduce into an inferior mind a quantity
of it equal to that which directs a superior
mind ? While, again, the quality which is called
sociability, far from being a co-adjutor of virtue,
may be, and frequently is, the companion of
vice — aye, and sometimes the very instrument
by which vice accomplishes her most fatal
triumphs.

Though Hume has brought forward his vir
tues in a strangely disassociated and disjointed
state, it will be, perhaps, most convenient to
take them in the disorder in which he leaves
them. No classification of them will make
what is not virtue, virtue ; and such virtue as is
really in them will be found marshalled under
the appropriate heads to which the virtue
belongs.

HUME'S VIRTUES. 227

Sociability. It is a disposition to seek the
society of others. It is good or bad, virtuous or
vicious, according to the purpose and the con
duct of the social man. It has only so much
of virtue in it as it has of benevolence, and
if it be combined with benevolence, it becomes
friendliness — friendliness, which stands in
Hume's list as a distinct virtue. A disposition
to avoid maleficence is generally a concomitant
part of the social character, and thus far it is
in accordance with the laws of negative effective
benevolence. But sociability may be accom
panied, and is so not unfrequently, particularly
where exercised towards persons of different
conditions, with tyranny or maleficence ; often
it has wit for one of its instruments, wit of a
pain-giving or pleasure-destroying character.
Sociability may be used for the purposes of
insolence, of which many examples are to be
found in the writings of Cicero,* It may ally
itself with scorn, as it did in the case of Burke ;
so that a man, hunting over the field of socia
bility for morality or happiness, may find neither.
Sociability then, standing alone, says nothing
for good or evil. It may represent self-regard

**' I was not thirteen/ said Mr Bentham, on one occa
sion, to the writer, ( when the abominations of Cicero
shocked me.*

228 DEONTOLOGV.

in an offensive shape, and become an instru
ment of self-eulogium for evil-producing qua
lities. It may be the associate of fraud and
rapine, and lend the fascinations of its presence
to every project of folly and vice and crime.

Good-nature. It is nearly allied with socia
bility, but is, with reference to virtue and vice,
completely ambiguous. So much of it as is
natural, or part of the distinctive individual
character, cannot be deemed a virtue. That
portion of it which is acquired, which is the
result of reflection, supposing it can be distin
guished and separated from the rest, may be
virtuous. , Associated with benevolence, it is,
like sociability, nearly synonymous with friend
liness. It has in it a greater mixture than soci
ability of the natural with the moral character.
If wholly constitutional, it is no more a virtue
than beauty or strength is a virtue; it adds
agreeableness to social intercourse, whether
conduct be virtuous or not. That part of good
nature which, independently of physical ten
dencies, has become effective benevolence, that,
and that alone, is virtue; but it is not the
good- nature that is the virtue, it is the effective
benevolence. So, again, good-nature may lend
itself to the service of imprudence or improbity.
The disposition to please another has not un-
frequently been the cause of misconduct. Even

HUME'S VIRTUES. 229

in common parlance, a man is sometimes said
to have been led astray by his good-nature.
It may be the weakness upon which temptation
acts ; and the pleasure of gratifying the person
who appeals to it may close the eyes to the
consequences of every consequent evil.

Humanity. It is effective benevolence, or a
disposition towards effective benevolence, spe
cifically directed to a particular case of suffer
ing. Its object is the removal of some positive
and weighty evil. It is very like good-nature
under excitement. It implies the exercise of
not inconsiderable power of relief on the part
of the humane man, and, for the most part, sup
poses that, but for the exercise of his humanity,
the relieved object will be subjected to greater
evils than those humanity seeks to remove.
But to this there are some exceptions; the hu
manity of a king would lead him to pardon at
the expense of penal justice ; the consequence of
which would be good on a small scale, and evil
on a large one: the balance being a great
public loss ; and the exercise of humanity not
a virtue, but a vice. It may therefore be, or
may not be, praiseworthy. Its title to the
name of virtue can only be judged of when the
pains it removes are weighed against the pains
it creates. It is apt to commit errors under
present impulses. Where, for example, the

230 DEONTOLOGY.

discipline or punishment attending imprudence
is likely to correct that imprudence, and huma
nity steps in to ward off that punishment, so
that the imprudence will be repeated in con
sequence of being unvisited by punishment,
the humanity, far from being a virtue, is really
a vice. And such cases are of frequent occur
rence, ' IVJany of our institutions, called humane
and charitable, whose object is to screen mis
conduct from its penalties, do, in fact, only
minister to human misery. Indiscriminate alms
giving may, in the same way, be a premium
to idleness and profligacy. It is pernicious
wherever it weakens the moral sanction to such
an extent as to produce, by the deterioration
of character, a quantity of future pain, greater
than that which it immediately removes. The
lesson to be taught humanity, in order to make
it virtuous, is that of calculation. Its disposi
tion is always to remove a pain, and to forget
the salutary influence of that pain upon the
time to come. It is only, therefore, as con
nected with prudence and benevolence that
humanity is entitled to approval.

Mercy. It is humanity; but it supposes the
object of it to be more directly dependent on
him who exercises it. The party served is
here in the hands of the party serving; their
mutual position more contrasted by the help-

HUME'S VIRTUES. 231

lessness of the one party and the power of the
other. To form a right judgment of the cased
in which mercy may be exercised with a view
to the greatest happiness principle, depends
on the intellectual part of man ; the disposition
to its exercise, on his moral' part. Attached
to it are ideas of power, associated with vague
conceptions of tyranny. These grow out of the
distance between the dispenser and the reci
pient of mercy. In the political field, the law
which has been laid down in the case of huma
nity applies here. The mercy — the favor to
the individual — must be weighed against the
evil done to the community. The demand
made upon mercy is usually greater than that
made upon humanity. Its value, in the esti
mate of virtue, must be calculated by its effects.
The portion of it which has virtue in it belongs
to effective benevolence.

Gratitude is effective benevolence, in act
or disposition, in consideration of services re
ceived by the grateful person, or some person
connected with him by the ties of sympathy,
Its efficiency is not a necessary consequence
of its existence; it may be a state of mind
remaining inoperative for want of occasion. It
grows in the mind of the grateful person, out
of benefits conferred on him. But it is not
necessarily virtuous ; for virtue, doing a small

232 DEONTOLOGY.

quantity of good, may be accompanied by vice,
doing a large quantity of mischief. A man has
conferred on me a service. He is in prison for
a^ flagitious crime. To rescue him would be
gratitude, but it would not be virtue.

Gratitude is a subject of great laudation.
Every body is fond of gratitude, because every
bocfy who does a favor likes to receive favors
in return. Yet effective benevolence may be
more efficient where no gratitude has place.

Gratitude is a most popular virtue ; it is fed
by self-regard : and ingratitude is represented
as a very hideous vice. All men are interested
in endeavoring to obtain repayment for benefits
lent. And the public-opinion tribunal has
affixed a special stigma upon him who, upon
occasion, does not make the return of services
he has received. He who does a benefit is
supported by the concurrence of society in
anticipating the fruits of gratitude, or a benefit
in exchange. And every man has greater ex
pectation of good services from an acquaintance
than from a stranger. A refusal 6f services
from an acquaintance, and especially from one
you have obliged, produces more annoyance
than the refusal of services by a person unknown
to you.

In fine, gratitude, in so far as it is under the
guidance of utility, may be ranked among the

HUME'S VIRTUES. 233

virtues, but it may be so counterbalanced by
evil as to belong to the regions of vice.

Opposed to gratitude is ingratitude, of which
resentment is one of the forms. Gratitude pro
duces good deeds, and resentment evil deeds.
Resentment may be used in an ambi-lateral
sense ; a man may resent a kindness as well
as an unkindness. Resentment in action is
maleficence.

It was the sign of a certain degree of advance
ment in morality, to think of making ingratitude
a crime : but it was the sign of an era but little
advanced in wisdom, not to see that it was
impracticable to designate it as a crime on all
occasions.

How long and intricate an account must it
not often be necessary to take between two
persons who have lived much together, before
it can be known, in point of good offices, which
of them is the debtor ?

The fortunes, the necessities of each must be
known. The most generous, the most worthy,
would stand always the worst chance. The
most crafty, the least sincere, would be sure
to gain the cause. What he gave he would
give before witnesses; what he received he
would receive in secret : there would soon be
no such thing as either generosity on the one
hand, or gratitude on the other.

234 DEONTOLOGY.

Friendliness is effective benevolence on a small
scale. Like good-nature, it is a disposition to
confer benefits ; but the disposition is principally
directed towards those with whom the friendly
person has had intercourse. It is ready to act
whenever the opportunity may present itself.
It imports somewhat more than a disposition
to acts of kindness, and is accompanied by
sympathy in a state of considerable activity.
The notion of friendliness involves with it that
of sympathy, at least in the common relations
of life. In some of the higher walks, parti
cularly the political, though the language of
friendship is used, the sentiment is hardly sup
posed to exist. Its connection with effective
benevolence is, as has been stated, intimate;
it is also sometimes produced by the self-
regarding affections. To the two branches of
morality, all in it that constitutes virtue must
be referred. Its good and its evil may be
considerably modified by the application of
right principles to its operation, which, in fact,
is the only reason for its admission into the
field of inquiry. Morals are not made for
application to that which is unchangeable, but
to that which may be modified or changed by a
more correct view of things.

Aristotle has made friendship a sort of cousin
to the virtues. It is a state or condition of life

HUME'S VIRTUES. 235

constituted by a certain sort of relation analo
gous to maritality, uxoriality, paternity, ma
ternity, filiality. It is a species of marriage,
without sexual communion for its bond, or pro
geny for its consequence, and is thence not for
life or for a specific term.

Generosity, where a virtue, is effective bene
volence, — friendliness on a larger scale; it is
friendliness not bounded by the circle of ac
quaintance, but extending to persons in general.
Friendliness implies a preference. Generosity
is diffusive.

Generosity, without the guidance of prudence
or benevolence, is vice and folly. He who
gives away all that he has to another, who
wants it less than himself, and thus confers less
pleasure than he sacrifices, does a very gene
rous, but a very foolish act. So he who lavishes
money, or money's worth, for a pernicious pur
pose, however generous the expenditure, is
doing a vicious deed.

The benevolence must be judged of by the
sacrifice made. A small sum of money, for
example, given by a poor man, would be evi
dence of generosity ; while the giving a consi
derable sum would scarcely be so from a man
extremely opulent. The, generosity of the poor
is generally visible in personal services, in the
dedication of their time, in the exposure of their

236 DEONTOLOGY.

persons, in the risks they run. That of the
more privileged classes in a mixture of personal
and pecuniary services. As the value of money
becomes less, and the station of the generous
person is higher, money becomes more and
more the instrument of generosity. At every
stage, however, the same tests apply.

Beneficence, it has been already remarked,
is not necessarily a virtue. To render services,
to do good to others, is not always a virtuous
act. Every man who spends money is bene- /
ficent, a doer of good ; but there is no virtue m)
doing so. To discharge the common functions
of nature is beneficent ; to eat and drink, to
sleep, to dress, anything by which good is done.
Where beneficence differs from effective bene
volence, though it may be a good, it is not a
virtue. The distinction has been so frequently
drawn in the course of this work, that it is
needless to repeat it here.

Justice is effective benevolence, wherever it
deserves the credit of virtue. It is the rendering
of services where they are expected, on ade
quate grounds. It is the doing good where
disappointment would attach to its not being
done, and the public-opinion tribunal sanctions
the expectation that it will be done, ^

In civil matters and in penal matters justice
is a very different thing. In the social field,

HUME'S VIRTUES. 237

justice is that which secures a man from the
disappointment which would deprive him of
objects to which he has a right, recognized by
society. It is the application of the disappoint
ment-preventing principle. If it is not this, it
is what any person chooses to call justice. The
law, * Do unto another as you would he should
do unto you/ does not apply here, nor would
it serve as a definition of justice, because no one
would willingly inflict punishment on himself,
and the infliction of punishment is often neces
sary to establish the claims of justice.

Justice in penal matters is the application
of penal remedies. The best justice is the
best application of remedies against the evils of
maleficence. It has only to do with acts, and
not with dispositions. The dispositions belong
to the moral, the acts to the political field.

In the class consisting of eleven qualities
useful to ourselves, there is a jumble of qua
lities almost identical, though called by different
names. It would be difficult to distinguish in
what respect, as to virtue, discretion and caution
differ from prudence, honesty and fidelity from
justice; how economy and frugality are to be
disassociated from prudence ; why industry and
assiduity are disunited ? But a few words upon
each may serve to remove some of the mists
which are gathered round the temple of morality.

238 DEONTOLOGY.

Discretion is the right judgment formed for
the purpose of action, in cases of more or less
difficulty. It is the quality of mind which
makes for itself a correct estimate of probable
results. It is the forethought which marks out
the most appropriate line of proceeding in a
given course. It is intellectual aptitude directed
to conduct. But this is no more a virtue than
the power of solving an arithmetical problem
is a virtue, or than the possession of animal
strength is a virtue. It is cleverness, derived
either from birth or from education.

Industry is an ambiguous word; supposing
labor applied to purposes not illaudable, it
includes activity with a view to profit. It may
be an instrument in the hands of other virtues ;
it is no virtue of itself. In another language,
if not in our own, the word is sometimes em
ployed in an unfavorable sense, chevalier d1 In
dustrie meaning a swindler or cheat, the expres
sion implying that diligence is used in furthering
the purposes of fraud.

Frugality imports action positive or negative.
It is prudence employed in the pecuniary field ;
self-regarding prudence, for the most part. It
is the check which prevents from being wasted
or needlessly diminished, those pleasures which
are purchaseable by wealth. It is adjacent,,
as Hume remarks, to two vices— to prodigality,

HUME'S VIRTUES. 239

which is imprudence; to avarice, which is op
posed to effective benevolence.

Honesty is subordinate to justice. It is some
times an ambiguous phrase. Montaigne says
every body ought to be honest in talking of his
own virtues. He forgets that such talk will
be likely to wound the self-love of another.
A man may to himself prefer himself, but such
self-preference is not very likely to be recog
nized by a second person.

Fidelity is also subordinate to justice. It is
the manifestation of an active faculty, and im
plies the observance of a contract, specific or
understood.

Truth is not a human quality — is not a virtue.
Veracity is a far more convenient word ; and
veracity is a virtue which occupies a very inap
propriate place in the public mind, and the
breaches of which are in consequence protected,
to a great extent, by the popular sanction.
Thucydides says, that in his time one hero
would ask another, ( Are you a robber?' The
days are come in which a man might ask
another, ' Are you an advocate ? ' — an advocate
being one whose power is in his tongue, and who
sells that power to the first comer — to the right
side or the wrong side, as may be ; to advocate
* justice or to defeat justice. {JThe old days were
days of force ; the present are days of fraud.

240 DEONTOLOGY.

The powers of the body had once the mastery,
now those of the mind. It was physical force
that then ruled, — it is now mental fraud.

Lying has to a great extent introduced itself
into the daily forms of society ; useless always,
and frequently pernicious. It may not on every
occasion do harm to others, but it invariably
does harm to the liar himself. It will inevita
bly lower him in the opinion of others, unless, as
in the case of some of the professions, he is
specially endowed with the privilege of lying.

The Spaniard who says, ' Esta casa es de V.'
' This house is your's/ when you quit him after a
visit, tells a lie to no purpose whatever. The
Frenchman who says, 'Je suis enchant^ ' — 'je
suisdeso!6' — 'I am enchanted' — 'I am desola
ted,' — though he preserves all the while his tran-
quility, lies to no purpose whatever. The Eng
lishman who says ' Not at home/ though he is
at home, lies to no purpose whatever. In
the terms of politeness, so called, mendacity
occupies a leading place.

The confusion of ideas between truth and
veracity has often created great ambiguities of
expression. Brissot was misled by it. He wrote
a book on La Vwite, which verity marched him
about as if it had been a will-o'the-wisp he was
running after. Sometimes it was a knowledge
of things, sometimes it was veracity, correctness

HUME'S VIRTUES. 241

of statement — the truth ; sometimes it was the
love of truth, in resistance to religious tyranny ;
by which he meant that knowledge which is the
result of evidence, as opposed to those declara
tions of belief which do not grow out of evi
dence, but out of authority. He sometimes
used it to represent the substantial fact of the
real existence of certain objects. In fact, truth
in the abstract, and with the vague associations
which attach to it, is a very strange entity, and
slippery as an eel.

Veracity is the disposition of a man to give to
others the exact impression of his own mind;
it is the avoidance of misrepresentation, and that
growing out of attention, intense in proportion
to the importance of the representation itself.

Veracity being wholly subordinate to pru
dence and benevolence, is its exercise a virtue
in a case where neither would be violated by its
infraction, or would such infraction be a vice ?
No ! but to find such cases would be no easy
task. Veracity is not indeed of any value but
with a reference to the circumstances that
surround it. In the case of lying, it may be seen
how insufficient the often employed religious
sanction is for restraining childhood from vice.
A child has it said to him, 'If you tell a lie you
will go to hell;' he tells a lie, the menaced pu-

VOL. i. R

242

DEONTOLOGY.

nishment does not fall upon him, and the menace
soon ceases to have any influence. If the child
believe, his next thoughts may naturally be —
' I may as well tell a hundred lies, it will not
make the matter worse.'

Sincerity has a wider import than veracity.
It js a breach of sincerity not to state a fact ;
it is no breach of veracity. There is much less
scruple in not stating things than in stating
things falsely ; it is the contrast between what
is negative and what is positive. To state what
is annoying to another when no purpose is
answered of corresponding pleasure, chance of
pleasure, or exemption from pain, is the con
trary of virtuous. Where there is a solemn
demand for truth, the cases are few where it
should not be disclosed.

The importance of veracity must also be con
sidered with a reference to the number of per
sons interested in it. He who deceives two
commits a greater crime than he who deceives
one. Falsehoods are susceptible of a classifica
tion which will serve to point out .the extent of
their mischievousness and consequent immoral
ity. Malicious falsehoods are flagitious ; they
should be avoided for the sake of others. Inter
ested falsehoods are mean ; a man should avoid
them for his own sake. So falsehoods to excite

HUME'S VIRTUES. 243

astonishment are to a certain extent interested
falsehoods, which for his own sake a. man
should avoid.

Falsehoods of humanity, falsehoods to avoid
hurting the self-love of others or exposing the
persons or property of others to injury ; as where,
for instance, an assassin is in pursuit of his
intended victim, and is misled by a falsehood
told him as to the direction taken by the person
he is pursuing ; these may be innocent and
benevolent, as long as they do not give cause
to suspect a general indifference to veracity. If
lavishly employed this will infallibly be the
result ; thence the demand of prudence that their
employment should be most rare, as in fact the
demand for them is rare.

Falsehoods of necessity; such as are and
must be used to madmen ; falsehoods of self-
defence, against lawless violence, come under
the same conditions.

Equivocation differs from falsehood, and is
preferable to it, inasmuch as it gives the chance
that if the equivocator cannot immediately dis
cover terms sufficiently ambiguous for equivo
cation, he will tell the truth.

An equivocation is a falsehood in ideas, not
in words.

A lie is a falsehood both in ideas and words.

The having recourse rather to equivocation

244 DEONTOLOGY.

than to a lie direct, shows a certain regard to
truth ; for though an equivocation might be pre
ferred to truth, truth may be preferred to a lie.

Truth may be had from a person who deals
in equivocations ; for he may be taken on a
sudden, before he has time to put together an
equivocation.

If a man is known only for an equivocator, it
is also known that there is a method of dealing
with him. It is to press him with distinctions
upon the terms of his answers, till you get him
to terms not susceptible of ambiguity. You by
this means force him at last to take his chance
between simple truth and downright false
hood.

An equivocator gives evidence of a disposition
to keep upon terms with truth.

Perjury is lying in the case where the reli
gious sanction is put prominently forward as the
guarantee for truth and the check upon falsehood.
The force of the religious sanction depends
wholly upon the state of the mind of the indi
vidual to whom it is applied. It will add
nothing to the power of eliciting truth in cases
where the popular sanction is in full activity. In
the cases of oaths and vows the sanction is the
same. The profanation of a vow diminishes the
force of the sanction as applied to promises of
future conduct ; it therefore diminishes the force

HUME'S VIRTUES. 245

of the same sanction as applied to relations of
past conduct or past events.

There are cases where a vow, though an under
taking for future conduct, may be violated in the
act of taking it. Such is that of a vow taken
to believe a proposition, of the truth of which
the person vowing has no conviction at the
time.

The guilty of this profanation are those who
insist on this sacrifice of principles to prejudices,
on pretence of securing a tranquillity of mind
which would be far better compassed by that
liberty which takes away the motives to debate.

As a means of this tranquillity their own voice
is in favour of these forced professions ; the voice
of experience in every country where this liberty
is perfect, and of every country in which it has
been admitted at all, as far as it has been
admitted, is against them.

Among the Romans, while the undertaking
was confined to respect things at once useful
and practicable, such as obedience to the order
of a general, the force of this sanction was
stupendous.

Veracity and mendacity are less immediately
connected than the other virtues with pleasure
and pain. Hence the difficulty of assigning to
their modifications the character that belongs
to them. Sincerity and insincerity, ingenuous-

246 . DEONTOLOGY.

ness and disingenuousness, are more or less
pernicious, more or less virtuous or vicious, as
the particular case may exhibit them. Silence
itself may have all the mischief and culpability
of mendacity, where, for instance, the convey
ance of information is a matter of duty, where
prudence or benevolence require that the infor
mation should be given. Veracity, in some
cases, demands fortitude for an ally, and forti
tude becomes a virtue when the alliance is to
further the ends of sound morality.

Caution is near akin to discretion, but has

i

more timidity in it, and is applied to subjects
from whence greater danger may arise. It is
prudence wherever there is virtue in it.

Enterprize is activity, combined with com
parative fearlessness with reference to evil re
sults ; it is one of the forms of activity, and
may be considered a species of intellectual
courage, either facing danger (i. e. probable
evil) or turning aside from it. This may be
either the result of the will, or of the non-
application of the will to the subject. Attention
is the applicaction of the will, when the will
is acted on with a considerable degree of force.

Assiduity is a continued enterprize, applied
for a considerable length of time to the same
subject, without any long interruption.

Economy is frugality combined with good

HUME'S VIRTUES. 247

management, which is an intellectual attribute ;
it is sometimes used without reference to eco
nomy, and implies a self-denial which is not
necessary to economy. Temptations to dissi
pation surround every man; and here, as on
other parts of the field, the continued practice
of self-denial is a habit of virtue.

Follow a list of qualities, fourteen in number,
of which Hume says nobody can for a moment
refuse them the tribute of praise and appro
bation. Of these temperance, sobriety, and pa
tience are but emanations from self-regarding
prudence. Constancy, perseverance, forethought,
and consider ateness, when virtues, are modifica
tions of prudence, but are not necessarily vir
tues, — nay, they may be vices. Secrecy, when
a virtue, belongs to prudence or effective bene
volence; while order, insinuation, address, presence
of mind, quickness of conception, and facility of
expression, are, for the most part, intellectual
attributes, and in no wise entitled to be clas
sified either as virtues or vices, except in as
far as they are regulated by the will.

Sobriety is temperance applied to any thing
producing intoxication.

Patience may refer either to sensation or to
action; it is the non-indication of suffering
equal to the actual suffering, and the more

248 DEONTOLOGY.

patient a man is, the less is his suffering in
creased by duration.

Constancy has many meanings; constancy,
in a bad cause, would be vice, as, in a good
cause, it is virtue : it is perseverance in a cause,
whether right or wrong; it is perseverance,
in spite of temptation. It is vicious, virtuous,
or neuter. A man constantly eats, drinks, and
sleeps ; but his eating, drinking, and sleeping
are not acts of vice nor virtue.

Perseverance rather imports continuity of
action : like constancy, it may, or may not, be
virtue. It calls attention into exercise.

Forethought is imagination applied to future
contingent events : it is necessary to the proper
exercise of self-regarding prudence. Its value
depends on the remoteness and complexity
of the objects towards which it is directed,

Considerateness is the bringing together toll
the ideas that bear on a subject with reference
to the end in view; the end constituting the
merit or demerit of the quality,

Secrecy is a negative quality. It is negative
effective benevolence, applied to the case where
the disclosure of facts would be prejudicial to
others ; it is self-regarding prudence when the
disclosure would be prejudicial to the individual
himself. When a secret is committed to you,

HUME'S VIRTUES. 249

and the divulging it would do no harm to your
self or others, the divulging it is a breach of
contract.

Order is a modification of method ; it is the
putting things one after another, so that some
particular end is answered by the arrangement.
Order is an abstract word, which you cannot
do without any more than you can do without
the word time: it is the placing things in a line;
it is a compound non-entity, growing out of our
ideas of space and time.

Insinuation is the faculty of recommending
oneself to another by action or discourse, ac
companied by a desire that the faculty should
not be detected. It is the art of ingratiation —
the making oneself an object of sympathy, with
a concealment of the purpose.

Address is an instrument of insinuation ; it
is insinuation in a wider field of thought and
action.

Presence of mind is a power over one's own
mind ; it is the faculty of readily bringing into
view all the several considerations necessary to
correct decision : it is that which takes prompt
measures for the prevention of evil.

Quickness of conception should have preceded
' presence of mind.' It is a simple idea ; it is
implied in the idea of presence of mind.

250 DEONTOLOGY^

Facility of expression can be no virtue; it
is quickness of conception giving language to
its thought.

The qualities agreeable to ourselves are,
according to Hume, cheerfulness, dignity or
magnanimity, courage and tranquillity.

Cheerfulness, in so far as it is a natural
disposition, is not a virtue : in so far as it is
acquired, it is prudence. It is the being pleased,
and the giving expression to the sense of plea-
sure. It is, to a very great extent, an endow
ment of a particular constitutional temperament.
Virtue is something which can be excited by
effort; it is something which obeys our com
mands : but a disposition to sadness, or a dis
position to gladness, does not obey our com
mands. By study we may diminish the one
and increase the other, and by so doing we give
evidence of, and exercise to, self-regarding
prudence. By far the larger portion of cheerful
ness is inherent, though enjoyment acts upon it,
and tends greatly to its increase. ' The habit
of doing good/ as benevolence has been called,
is the best instructor how to make instruments
of cheerfulness. Every being who is the recipi
ent of benevolence may be a source of future
pleasure, and of exemption from future pain.
Dignity, when a virtue, is extra-regarding

HUME'S VIRTUES, 251

prudence; it may be exhibited in behavior,
or it may ;be the exhibition alone of the instru
ments of dignity.

Courage may be a virtue or may be a vice.
To a great extent it is a natural quality : it
does not always imply self-denial, nor always
exhibit benevolence. It may be, perhaps, more
properly said that courage is neither' a virtue
nor a vice, but an instrument of either, its
character depending wholly on its application.

For a man to value himself on his courage,
without any reference to the occasions on which
it is exercised, is to value himself on a quality
possessed in a far higher degree by a dog,
especially if the dog is mad.

Tranquillity is insensibility to external causes
of suffering, and particularly of remote suffering.
Every man desires to keep in view objects that
are agreeable, and out of view objects that are
disagreeable.

The qualities which Hume introduces, as
agreeable to others, are politeness, wit, decency,
and cleanliness.

Politeness is more of a negative than a posi
tive quality. It is the avoidance of actions
or behavior which may be disagreeable to the
person with whom you have to do. Its positive
branch is the doing whatever it may be agree
able to others that you should do. In all

252 • DEONTOLOGY.

cases where the laws of prudence and bene
volence are not opposed to the usages of society,
self-interest demands attention to them. The
highest order of politeness is the application
of the rules which are recognized |jn^ high life.
But herejthsre is mingled with it so much
mendacity, and that of a useless, even when
not vprominently pernicious character, that the
analysis of politeness must be thoroughly made
before its character can be determined-/ It
easily degenerates into self-esteem, and instead
of an instrument of pleasure, becomes one of
annoyance. Many men intend to communicate
enjoyment, — for example, by stories, by exces
sive attentions, and other efforts, which are the
cause of weariness to those whom they really
desire to gratifyJ Fashion is the competition
for admiration, and its vices begin where annoy
ances are caused to others for the purposes
of selfishness. In some cases, as in the courts
where etiquette is carried farthest, the sacrifice
of the many to the one, of the comforts of the
many to the pride of the one, is striking.
Under the Bourbons at the Tuileries, etiquette
required that, until the King sat down to cards,
every body must stand, however weary. This
was politeness, this was etiquette, but it was
absurdity and folly.

Wit is a very ambiguous virtue. Locke says

HUME'S VIRTUES. 253

that wit consists in discovering resemblances ; •
judgment, in discovering differences. Wit con
fers power, and is thence an object of desire :
it is the power of giving pleasure to some, but
often at the expense of pain to others. If the
subject of malevolent wit is present, his pain
is immediate ; if absent, he suffers from losing
a portion of the good opinion of others, and the
quantity of his suffering cannot be traced.

One of the merits of wit is that it should be
unexpected. There is a species of it which
may be produced from a dictionary by the mere
juxta-position of words. Quidlibet cum quod-
libet may be applied to its production.

Wit has no existence except where the ana
logy elicited is brought to view ; it may be by
contrast, but the analogy or the contrast should
be suddenly produced.

Decency is a term vague and unsatisfactory.
It means, as generally used, the avoidance of
bringing forward what is disagreeable to others.
This is a negative virtue. When it comes in a
positive shape, it is frequently only an eccle
siastical virtue, employing wealth for the pur
poses of delusion. Decency is to cover the
throne with crimson, to carve the pulpit, to
provide lawn sleeves; it is to do that which
it is agreeable to the ruling few to have done.
Delicacy is one of the branches of decency, but

254 DEONTOLOGY.

more commonly referring to the avoidance of
physical annoyances. It is not an unusual
thing for men to take merit to themselves for
being disgusted with that which does not dis
gust people in general, and to imagine that this
affected sensibility is a mark of their belonging
to the aristocratic classes. Decorum is another
of the forms of decency ; it refers, for the most
part, to the avoidance of matters of small mo
ment, the non-avoidance of which would expose
us to the contempt of others.

Cleanliness acts through the medium of the
imagination ; it is a negative virtue. It is the
avoidance of practices by which disease, or
the apprehension of disease, is produced. The
neglect of salutary attentions to the person is im
mediately associated with the idea of disease.
Dirt, for example, left on the body, calls up
the thought of unhealthiness. It is a sort of
mislocation of matter in small particles; and
attention to cleanliness is demanded by pru
dence, in as far as inattention to it is injurious
to ourselves ; by benevolence, in as far as inat
tention to it is offensive to others. The im
pression of its absence may be produced where
the intrusive substances are not in themselves
disagreeable. Gold-dust sticking to a man's
face would give nearly the same impression of a
want of cleanliness as any other substance, just

HUME'S VIRTUES. 255

as the finest white powder on a scuttle of coals
would give a notion of impurity.

And Hume concludes his list by the intro
duction of two virtues, classified as good qua
lities in society. They are chastity and alle
giance. Chastity is the refraining from sensual
enjoyments where indulgence is improper,
where their gratification would be productive of
more pain to others than of pleasure to him
who indulges in them. Modesty is not neces
sarily a branch of chastity. There may be
constant unchastity without immodesty. Gross
language — language in the highest degree immo
dest, may be unaccompanied with an unchaste
act; and acts of unchastity may be indulged in,
without the utterance of an immodest word.

Allegiance is vagueness itself, unless the spe
cial subject be shewn, and then it is effective
benevolence on the largest scale, provided the
object of allegiance is conformable to the greatest
happiness principle. All depends on the cha
racter of that government for which allegiance
is claimed. .Allegiance may be an obvious
virtue, it may be a very pernicious crime. A
good government is that in which the influence
is placed in the hands of those who are inte
rested in the exercise of benevolent power.
Allegiance is a term employed instead of obe
dience. Obedience is good when the govern-

256 DEONTOLOGY.

ment is good, — bad when the government is bad.
Opposition to institutions friendly to human
happiness is vice proportioned to the amount
of their excellence. Opposition to institutions
unfriendly to human happiness is virtue pro
portioned to the amount of their mischief. So
far, at least, is the teaching of effective bene
volence ; but if the sacrifice made to overthrow
bad governments exceeds the chances of good
to be produced by their overthrow, then virtue
demands abstention. No case can be conceived
in which virtue will allow the dictates of self-
regarding interest to attempt the overthrow of
good institutions ; for the amount of evil with
which others would be visited must com
pletely absorb the amount of good which the
individual could obtain for himself.

The examples given by Hume are, for the
most part, mere assumptions that he, the mo
ralist, is to decide on all the cases that come
before him.Y He occupies a pulpit whence he
deals out his moral dogmas, and speaks as
if he were the representative of higher virtues
than the man to whom he is speaking./ When
he gives no examples, it is mere idle trum-
petting, tantarara and fiddle-de-dee. He draws
no intelligible distinctions between pleasure,
passion, and pain : he makes distinctions where
there are no differences, and dreams of settling

HUME'S VIRTUES. 257

moral points by phrases, such as * It is becom
ing/ which are the mere sic volo despotism of
an instructor. ^Pleasure and pain are the only
clues for unravelling the mysteries of morality.
Fly where you will, fumble about as you
please, no other master key shall you find, to
open all the doors which lead into the temple
oftruth.*^

How does it happen that so many vague
words, with vague ideas, or no ideas at all
attached to them, have so long kept possession
of the field ? It is because we imagine we
thoroughly comprehend the terms which are
familiar to us.

What we are continually talking of, merely
from our having been continually talking of it,
we imagine we understand. So close an union
has habit cemented between words and things,
that we take one for the other, and when
we have words in our ears we imagine we have
thoughts in our minds. When an unusual

* The services of Hume, in many parts of the field of
moral and mental philosophy, were immense. He first drew
a clear distinction between impressions and ideas, a distinc
tion, without which it is hardly possible to obtain any clear
notions on many topics of leading importance. The dis
tinction is obvious when pointed out: — I see a man — it is a.
perception : I close my eyes, but imagine myself to see him
still — it is an idea.

VOL. I. S

258 DEONTOLOGY.

word presents itself, we challenge it ; we exa
mine ourselves, to see whether we have an
idea annexed to it ; but when a word that we
are familiar with comes across us, we let it
pass on, under favor of old recognition. The
long acquaintance we have had with it makes
us take for granted we have investigated all
its meaning; we deal by it, in consequence,
as the Custom-house officers in certain coun
tries, who, having once set their seal upon a
packet, so long as they see, or think they see
their seal upon it, reasonably enough suppose
themselves dispensed with • from visiting and
examining the contents of it anew.

FALSE VIRTUES, 259

CHAPTER XVII.

FALSE VIRTUES.

THERE are other qualities which have been put
forward by different writers on morality as
virtues, and as entitled to the praise and the
recompense of virtue. In most cases they are
of ambiguous character, and as they present
certain points of contact with prudence and
benevolence, they obtain the character of vir
tue, not so much on account of their essential
attributes as of their accidental association with
qualities really virtuous. The very defect of
character may in this way be made to present
an aspect of virtue : and the affections may be
so engaged with one side of a question, as to
interfere with a right judgment of its moral
merit, A mother steals a loaf to satisfy the
hunger of a starving child. How easy it would
be to excite the sympathies in favor of her
maternal tenderness, so as to bury all con
sideration of her dishonesty in the depth of
those sympathies. And, in truth, nothing but
an enlarged and expansive estimate, such as
would take the case out of the regions of sen-

260

DEONTOLOGY.

timentality into the wider regions of public
good, could ever lead to the formation of a right
judgment in such matters.

Contempt for Riches. Socrates' contempt for
riches was mere affectation and pride, just as
meritorious as it would have been for him to
have remained standing for a long time on one
leg. It was only denying to himself the doing
the good which riches would have enabled him
to do. The desire of wealth is the desire, in
a vague form, to possess what wealth can
obtain. So again, his denying himself assist^
ance from others was a mere self-regarding
calculation, it was only to excite their self-
esteem for other purposes ; it was a calculation
to receive more than he would otherwise obtain
— it was a refusal of 100/. in order to get
200/.

So Epictetus, — he had more pleasure in pride
than in benevolence. He paid himself out of
the testimonies of respect with which he was
surrounded. He calculated on getting more
from self-denial than he could get without it.
But he was less meritorious than the Oriental
fakirs, who suffer more than he. His conduct
was that of the miser who stores his wealth,
that, on any future occasion, he may command
what he pleases by the exercise of that instru
ment of power. He pays himself with the

FALSE VIRTUES. 261

pleasures of imagination, which are greater to
him than those of actual fruition. Misers, as
they grow older, have less sense of present
enjoyment, and become, therefore, more and
more disposed to avarice, which is an anticipa
tion of a future reward.

Love of Action. Love of action, without an
object, is nothing : it has in it neither vice nor
virtue. Such part of it as proceeds from the
will, and is directed to the production of hap
piness, is virtuous. Such part as is intellectual
is neutral; where it is the act of the will,
and is directed to the production of evil, it is
vicious.

Attention. It is the quality which distin
guishes the botanist who carefully gathers the
flower, from the clown who tramples it under
his feet. Fixed attention has been lately
brought forward as a virtue, and a pretty virtue
it is ; so that if I purpose to murder a man,
and fix my attention upon it, that is a virtue !

Enterprize has also been honoured with the
title of virtue. Enterprize, which may be as
bad a vice as any in the calendar. And
dispatch has reached the same laudatory eleva
tion.* Dispatch is the employment of the
least quantity of time sufficient for the attain-

* Most of the above are introduced as virtues by Jevons,
in his Principles of Morality.

262 DEONTOLOGY.

meot of an object. It is quickness without
precipitation. It is a prudent means, which
may be used for an end either of good or evil.

But, having established a general rule, which
every one may apply for himself to the estimate
of those qualities of which he desires to form a
judgment, — having shown that unless they can
be qlassed under the heads of prudence and
effective benevolence, they are not virtues, — that
only such parts of them are virtues as can be so
classed, — it is scarcely needful to pursue the
subject farther.

THE PASSIONS. .263

CHAPTER XVIII.

<

THE PASSIONS.

PASSION is intense emotion — emotion is evanes
cent passion.

The nature of the passions can only be un
derstood by their division into the different
heads of pleasure and pain : for the principles
by which they are to be governed, reference
must be made to the list of virtues and vices.

Let the passion of anger be analysed, and its
consequences traced. When under its influ
ence, a man is suffering pain — pain produced by
the contemplation of the act which has excited
the passion. An immediate consequence is, a
desire to produce pain in the breast of the party
who has awakened the anger. Anger, then,
has in it two constant ingredients — pain suffered
by the angry man, and a desire to give pain to
the person by whom he has been made angry.

And now to the question of virtue and vice.
As there is no anger without pain, the man who
draws pain upon himself without the compen
sation of a more lhan equivalent pleasure, vio
lates the law of prudence.

Next comes the desire to produce pain in the

264 DEONTOLOGY.

breast of the object of anger. This desire can
not be gratified without malevolence and male
ficence. Here is an obvious violation of the
law of benevolence. And here we have an ex
emplification of the relationship between passion
and pain and pleasure ; between passion and
virtue and vice.

Cannot anger then be indulged without vice
in both its shapes, without imprudence, and
without maleficence ?

It cannot ! It cannot, at least, whenever it
rises to the height of passion. And here a more
remote, but more mischievous result presents
itself to view, as a violation of the law of self-
regarding prudence. The passion cannot be
gratified but by the production of pain in his
breast by whom the anger has been excited,
and pain cannot be produced there without a
counter-desire to retaliate the pain, or greater
pain on him who has produced it. To the pain
in the breast of the angry man there is a termi
nation, and most commonly a speedy termina
tion, but to the remote pain, which may be con
sidered the third link in the chain of causes and
effects, who can put a limit ? Anger may have
had what is called its revenge, but the exercise
of that revenge may have created the durable
passion of enmity, to whose consequence it is
impossible to affix a boundary.

Since anger cannot exist without vice, what

THE PASSIONS. 265

is to be done ? Can a man exist without anger ?
Without anger can injuries be averted, can self-
defence, can self-preservation be provided for?

Certainly not without the production of pain
to him who has inflicted the injury. But to
the production of this pain anger is not ne
cessary. Anger is no more necessary than
to the surgeon by whom, to save suffering or
life, a painful operation is performed. No anger
is excited in his breast by the view of the agony
he inflicts, or by the contemplation of the
greater evil which would follow but for his in
terference. That anger should never have place
is not possible; it is not consistent with the
structure of the human mind. But it may be
said, and that on every occasion, and without
any exception, that the less there is of it the
better : for whatever pain is needful to the pro
duction of the useful effect, that pain will be
much better measured without the passion,
than by it.

But, it may be said, there are circumstances
in which not only pain — the natural effect of
anger — pain purposely produced, but anger
itself, the passion of anger, is useful, and even
necessary to the existence of society, and that
these circumstances in our own country, ex
tend over the whole field of penal jurispru
dence. I have been robbed. The offender,

266 DEONTOLOGY.

on conviction, will be capitally punished, or
transported in a state of servitude. Shall I
prosecute him ? Not if self- regarding prudence
is alone to be my counsellor ; for her counsels
would be — Add not to the loss inflicted by the
robbery, the farther loss inflicted on you by the
prosecution.. Not if I consult benevolence, for
she would say, the punishment is too great for
the offence. And such is the response which
in the knowledge of every body, and especially
when the punishment of death is menaced, fre
quently determines a man's conduct.

But, were the matter rightly considered, the
response, it might be said, would be — Yes!
prosecute ; for the good of the community re
quires that neither the suffering of the offender
in the shape of punishment, nor the suffering of
yourself, the prosecutor, in the shape of vexa
tion and expence, should be grudged. Good !
but I can ill afford it : the pecuniary burthen to
me will be greater than that uncertain, unesti-
mated, and remote benefit which will grow out
of the prosecution and its results. Again, the
responses of benevolence have no influence with
me. Be they ever so decisive, they have not a
preponderant weight in my mind,

In this case, neither prudence nor benevolence
will produce action ; and yet, if action were
not produced, the security of society would suf-

THE PASSIONS. 267

fer a serious shock — a shock serious in propor
tion to its frequency ; and, if constant, security
would be wholly destroyed, and the general
ruin of property would immediately follow.
The supposed virtue in both its forms, is insuffi
cient to preserve society, and anger, however
dissocial its character, is indispensably neces
sary.

It is not easy to refute this reasoning, under
the present state of our penal code. But it will
be immediately seen, that the necessity of the
passion does not arise out of the nature of the
case, and that it is produced, to a great extent,
by the imperfections of our laws : for if those
imperfections were removed, the demand for the
passion of anger would, at all events, be very
greatly diminished. Were the needless ex-
pence and vexation attending a prosecution re
moved, the answer of self-regarding prudence
might be opposite to what it now is. Were the
pernicious excess of punishment taken away,
the answer of benevolence would be opposite to
what it is. And if you suppose a state in which
the passion of anger were subjected to the de
mands of prudence and benevolence, how few
would be the occasions in which the passion it
self could find field for its exercise.

The legislator, indeed, whose purpose is to
keep delinquency within bounds, and whose

268 DEONTOLOGY.

conduct is to produce effect on the national
scale, has a claim upon him somewhat different
from that on the individual. The self- regarding
motives are, in his case, not the prominent ones,
and while the inhibition of the passion in the
breast of individuals seems demanded by virtue,
benevolence requires from the legislator such
an exercise of it as will lead to those inflictions of
pain, which are likely to minimize the quantity
of crime.

Anger has the quality of being increased
by giving vent to itself. He who swears be
cause he is angry, only becomes the more angry
in consequence. The appetite is increased, not
satisfied, by the aliment it feeds on.

What has been said of anger applies to envy
and jealousy. They both imply the presence
of pain. To suppress them in our own breasts
is demanded by prudence ; if they exist there in
an inoperative state, it is prudence alone that
requires their suppression. If they are likely
so to be awakened as to produce a maleficent
influence upon others, their suppression is called
for by benevolence.

But why is reason inefficacious against
passion ?

It cannot raise up images lively enough.

What is called reason, as applied to the
government of the passions, is the making the

THE PASSIONS. 269

scale turn in favor of a greater pleasure in pre
ference to a less.

The will necessarily yields to the solicitation
of the greatest apparent good.

And the causes why the influences of passion
domineer over the influences of reason are—

1, Want of apparent intensity in the distant
pleasure which reason promises — want of viva
city in the idea of it.

2. Want of apparent certainty — want of
ready discernment to trace out, at the instant,
the train of effects and causes that promote or
impede the production of the distant pleasure.

Hence the use of the expedient, which has
been frequently recommended, of playing off
one passion against another.

Habitually to exercise the mind in the appli
cation of the true standard of morality, will be
habitually to train the affections and the pas
sions to virtuous tendencies and virtuous con
duct. And the occasions are infinite — they are
occurring every hour of our existence, nor is
any occasion to be despised. Like flakes of
snow that fall unperceived upon the earth, the
seemingly unimportant events of life succeed
one another. As the snow gathers together, so
are our habits formed. No single flake that is
added to the pile produces a sensible change; no
single action creates, however it may exhibit, a

270 DEONTOLOGY.

man's character ; but, as the tempest hurls the
avalanche down the mountain, and overwhelms
the inhabitant and his habitation, so passion,
acting upon the elements of mischief, which
pernicious habits have brought together by im
perceptible accumulation, may overthrow the
edifice of truth and virtue.

INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES. 271

CHAPTER XIX.

•

INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES.

BETWEEN the intellectual faculties and virtue
and vice there exists an intimate relation.
Wherever the will has any influence on their
direction, they belong to the moral field ; and,
in as far as it is in the power of the will to add.
to their efficiency, they become instruments of
pain and pleasure, and important in the propor
tion of the amount of pain and pleasure which
their exercise is able to produce.

The faculty of invention, for instance, belongs
to the understanding — it is intellectual ; but,
whether it is an instrument in the hands of
virtue or vice, depends upon its application to
purposes beneficent or maleficent.

But the influence of the understanding upon
the will is yet more important. It is to the un
derstanding that every appeal must be made,
and unless it can be associated with the demands
of morality, there is little prospect for the suc
cess of the Deontological teacher. His reason
ings, his persuasions must be addressed to the
intellectual faculties. He must win them to his

272 DEONTOLOGY.

side before he can influence conduct. It is by
their assistance that he is to teach the arithme
tic of pains and pleasures. By them he is to
show what are the penalties to be paid by vice,
and what are the recompenses to wait upon vir
tue. He reasons ; and his reasons are prophetic
of inevitable evil to imprudence and improbity ;
of infallible good to prudence and benevolence.
Passion appeals only to that which is, — the in
tellectual faculties bring what will be into the
thoughts.! They, in fact, constitute the main
difference between the virtues of beasts and
those of men. The lower animals, for the most
part, are unchecked in their search of pleasure
by any anticipation of future pain. No appre
hension of consequences would lead them to
abstain from any present enjoyment. Except
among a few of the more intelligent, all the les
sons are lost even of experience : the waste of
experience being, perhaps, attributable to the
imperfections of the recollecting faculty. But
the mind of man stretches before and after.
Reason brings events that are passed to bear
upon the future. It not only draws upon expe
rience, but on imagination. The field of its
influence is boundless as the range of thought.
Observant of consequences, it presents them to
the inquirer.. It abstracts pains and pleasures
from the dross that surrounds them ; it analyses

INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES. 273

their value by dividing them into their compo
nent parts, or gathers them up into a whole in
order to ascertain the sum total. It compares
them one with another when they are arranged
on different sides, generalizes out of the col
lected elements, and deduces the ultimate re
sult. In this way do the intellectual faculties
become the most important servants of virtue,
leading men into the true and trust-worthy paths
of felicity.

Hume introduces his intellectual faculties
without any arrangement or order. They may,
however, be conveniently classed.

First : Passive Faculties. § I — Those which
operate, without need of much attention or com
parison, on more than one object.

1. Perception — the source of all the other
faculties.

2. Memory — becomes active when attention
is applied to it.

3. Imagination — a passive quality, for it is
busy even in dreams ; when active, it becomes
invention.

§ II. Operating on two or more objects, but
still without need of much attention.

1. Judgment — as in the case of vision.

Second : Faculties active — volitional.

§ I. Operating without need of the judgment
on more than one object.

VOL. i. T

274 DEONTOLOGY.

1. Attention.

2. Observation — which is attention applied
to a particular object.

§ II. — Requiring the assistance of the judg
ment, and the presence of more than one
object.

1. Abstraction.

2. Analysis.

3. Synthesis, or combination.

4. Comparison.

5. Generalization.

6. Deduction.

§ III. — Requiring the presence of two or
more of the active-volitional faculties, and of
two or more objects.

1. Distribution.

2. Methodization.

Invention is performed by the use of the other
faculties, including attention in an intense de
gree, under the direction of the judgment, and
having for its object the discovery of some new
fact, the production of some new effort, or the
formation of some new combination of ideas.

Communication, with which Hume closes his
list, seems to have no right to be classed among
the intellectual faculties.

When the intellectual faculties are not, or
cannot be called into operation, conduct is
taken out of the regions of virtue and vice. In

INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES. 275

infancy, for example, before the mind is brought
into action; in insanity, where the thinking
powers are overthrown, there is no respon
sibility, and, consequently, no title can be made
out to praise or blame. In the case of tempo
rary aberration of the reasoning powers, as
under the influence of intoxication, the actor is
not responsible for the act committed, while his
judgment is, as it were, extinguished. It is a
secondary consequence of a primary impru
dence. In the case of insanity, the course to be
pursued by society is clear, — the power of
voluntary action must be taken away. In the
case of infancy, the demand for impunity must
depend on the quantity of mind which is de
veloped ; and it will be found that, at a very early
age, the influence of pain, which is made to visit
misconduct, may be brought into operation, and
from the moment that such discipline becomes
operative, there is a demand for its application.
In the case of acts committed under the influ
ence of inebriety, there is no claim to impunity,
nor can any general rule be laid down which
shall be applicable to every case. All the sanc
tions must be consulted, in order to exact the
sufficient penalties for the past, and to obtain
the most appropriate securities for the future.

270 DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER XX.

CONCLUSION.

To what does all we have been advocating tend ?
To the development of two principles, — first,
the greatest happiness principle, or the diffusion
of good, — and, secondly, the disappointment-
opposing principle, or the prevention of evil.
Out of these two items all the branches of mo
rality grow.

It may be objected, that all our reasonings
have not brought our principles into the field of
demonstration. What then ! If our arguments
should so regulate conduct as to produce a
result which will leave no regret behind it,
what more have we reason to desire ? Are
they strong enough to communicate that balance
of pleasure towards which they tend, and to
which alone they look? What better should
they do ?

Whether they be of that kind to which we have
been accustomed to give the name of the in
tuitive, or of the demonstrative, or only of the
probable, it is no matter ; the satisfaction they

CONCLUSION. 277

give us is perfect; and, whatever be their name,
their success could be no more.

Give them the name of demonstration or any
other, what matters it ? It is not the name we
are concerned in, but the thing.

There is however something at the bottom of
all this anxiety. What men want to know is,
the degree of assurance they are warranted
to indulge. What evidence is there that this
morality is the true morality?

Call the sort of proof men have of a proposi
tion, demonstration, they may be positive
without being exposed to accusations of rash
ness either from themselves or any one else.

No one can have present to his mind the
proof of every proposition, how true soever,
which he believes. It is for want of the thing,
that men are so anxious about the word.

No man, how philosophical, how scrupulous
soever, but believes infinitely more propositions
upon trust than upon perception : the only
difference in this particular between the philo
sopher and the no-philosopher, or in short be
tween the wise man and the weak is, that the
latter rests upon authority conclusively, in the
last as well as in the first instance ; the former
always keeps open the appeal to reason, that is,
to his own perceptions. The judgments of the
first, upon hearing the report of authority, are

278 DEONTOLOGY.

provisional; the judgments of the latter are
definitive.

But of demonstration certain propositions are
not susceptible. The proposition that happi
ness is better than unhappiness cannot be sub
jected to mathematical proof. But let him who
impugns the doctrine impugn our reasonings.
It is the only axiom we desire to have taken for
granted, and this is to make a very small
demand upon confidence or upon credulity.

The march of utilitarian principles has been
obvious. They have made their way by their
native strength and excellence. How should
men be better occupied than in tracing the con
sequences of conduct? Observation brought
with it its corresponding results.

Men perceived such and such actions were
useful ; they perceived such and such other
actions were mischievous. They took a parti
cular action, of the sort, for instance, that was
mischievous : by abstracting the particular
circumstances of time, of place, of parties, they
formed a general idea ; to that general idea they
gave a name ; that name constituted a genus to
which other acts of the same nature were refer
red in common. If any one took into consider
ation that genus or species of action (no matter
which we call it) and said of it that it was mis
chievous, the proposition in which he said as

CONCLUSION. 279

much, — the proposition in which he predicated
mischievousness of action — formed a maxim of
utility.

But it is not probable that people put the
quality of an action that affected them upon
this conspicuous footing, in the early times
of which we are speaking; those times which
preceded the formation of laws. Men in gene
ral are not arrived so far even now. They ex
pressed their sentiments in some such obscure
terms as * right ' or * fitting/ terms which served
only to express their disapprobation, and not
the ground of it. It is one thing (how strange
soever the proposition may appear, expe
rience has taught the truth of it), — it itf one
thing for men to feel pain from an act, and mark
that act accordingly with a sentiment of disap
probation ; and another thing to fix explicitly
upon that pain as the cause of that disapprobation.

Nothing can be idler than the appeal to anti
quity as authority. In the midst of some truths
there are a thousand fallacies. The light to be
found shines by contrast with surrounding
darkness. Of instruments of delusion, erudition
has frequently made use of the most baleful.
True, such language was held, such opinions
were professed by self-styled philosophers.
What then? For, if from their language no
practical conclusion can be drawn, — if from their

280 DEONTOLOGY.

opinions no result of good can be elicited, where
is their value ? Men there are whose preach
ing conies to this :

' Read modern books less and ancient more.
Go for the moral sciences to Aristotle, to Plato.
For metaphysics, not to Locke, but still to Aris
totle. For Botany, not to Linnaeus, but to
Theophrastus — to ./Elian.'

This is precisely the way to talk of everything
and know nothing; — to be as much farther from
knowledge in almost every science as a child
who cannot tell his letters is from the most
intelligent professor.

Life is not long enough to store the mind with
the facts that form the stock of the several sci
ences, were no propositions presented but what
are true and those dressed in their simplest garb.
Yet many men would send us to rake in books in
which, for ten propositions evidently false, and ten
times the number of unintelligible ones, you will
scarcely find a single one that is true, and that one
dished out over and over again in the meanest
modem compilation on the subject you can lay
your hands on :) you may turn over whole vo
lumes of antiquity without discovering a solitary
truth to make you amends for your pains.

To make this any but the most absurd (as it
is one of the most pernicious.species of prejudice,
the whole order of nature must be reversed.

CONCLUSION. 281

The acorn must be larger than the oak it will
become. A man must be wiser in his mother's
womb than in the vigour of his manhood. Every
thing must be supposed to grow backwards.
New experiences added to the subsisting stock
must lessen the number there existed before,

It is scarcely possible to believe a man to
stand bona fide on so noxious a system. If he
do, grieve over him, but treat him as an enemy
to knowledge, and to that happiness which is
founded upon knowledge. The public interests
demand that his notions rise not into credit.

A man thinks not so highly of Plato as he
deserves. What is the consequence ? Nothing.
A man thinks more highly of Plato than he
deserves. What is the consequence ? He goes
and reads him. He tortures his brains to find
meaning where there is none. He moves hea
ven and earth to understand a writer who did
not understand himself, and he crawls out of
that mass of crudities with a spirit broken by dis
appointment and humiliation. He has learned that
falsehood is truth, and nonsense is sublimity.

Of all the works that can be imagined, there
could scarcely be a more useful one than an 'in
dex expurgatorius* (but the composer of it must
be a writer of sufficient eminence to give law to
men's opinions) of the books which have bewil
dered and betrayed mankind.

282 DEONTOLOGY.

If the theory of morals which has been here
developed, has in it any value, that value will
be found in its simplicity, intelligibleness, and
universal applicability. But let it not be sup
posed, because a standard has been recom
mended by which the multitudinous questions of
right and wrong are measured and decided, that
the discovery of this standard, and of its all-
Comprehensive fitness has been unattended with
laborious meditation and inquiry. The merit
of deep thought consists, not in compelling the
reader to descend into the profound well of truth,
there to draw for himself of its healthful and
refreshing waters; but in its having enabled the
writer to descend and to bring up for the use of
others the invigorating draught. There is little
due to the man who sends another forth in search of
undiscovered truth ; but he has established some
claim to the good opinion of his fellow men who,
having gone forth in pursuit of the treasure,
brings it home and delivers it over to the keep
ing of all who are willing to receive it at his
hands.

Of the merits of a work of which truth is the
object we cannot have an adequate idea nor a
perfect relish without some acquaintance with
the errors against which it is levelled and which
it is calculated to displace. With respect to
many, the apparent merit of such a work vill

CONCLUSION. 283

be apt to be in an inverse proportion to the real.
The better it answers its purpose of making an
abstruse subject plain, the more apt it will be
to appear to have nothing in it that is extra
ordinary.

A single observation that seems to contain
nothing more than what every body knew
already, may turn volumes of specious and for
midable fallacy into waste paper.

The same book may succeed ill with different
sorts of people for opposite reasons : by the
ignorant, who have no opinion about the matter,
it may be thought lightly of, as containing
nothing that is extraordinary ; by the false learn
ed, who have prejudices they cannot bear to
have questioned, it may be condemned as para
doxical, for not squaring with these prejudices.

HISTORY

OP THE

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE.

HISTORY

OP THE

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE,

IF the intentions of the Author and of the Editor
have been accomplished, this volume will be
found to be nothing but an application of the
Greatest-Happiness Principle to the field of
morals. When the principle first presented
itself to Mr Bentham's mind, he denominated
it the Utilitarian Theory ; but he soon discovered
that the phrase did not immediately present to
the views of others, the ideas which he attached
to it ; namely, that any thing is useful only in
as far, and in as much as it promotes the hap
piness of man. Happiness being the end and
object to be kept constantly in view, the word
Utility did not necessarily bring with it felicity
as its associate- It can hardly be without inter
est to trace the influences of the Greatest-Hap
piness Principle upon Mr Bentham's philosophy,
from the period when it first occupied his seri-

288 HISTORY OF THE

ous thoughts, until it became the master-key
which he applied to unlock all the intricacies of
moral and political science.

It was indeed his directing post, which he
consulted in all the walks of life, whether pub
lic or private ; the oracle, to whose voice he
unhesitatingly and on all occasions deferred,
both in his individual capacity, when seeking
guidance for his own steps, and as one of the
community endeavoring to mark out for others
the path of popular wisdom and virtue. In
every part of the field of thought and action he
invoked its aid and counsel : he appealed to it
for its laws, and for the reasons of those laws,
and registered its responses for the use and
government of his fellow men.

To himself he suggested it, and to others he
recommended it, not only as an end to be pro
posed, but as a means of attaining that end,
and as a motive to impel men to its pursuit,
It was to him a storehouse of arguments,
objects, instruments, and rewards.

He did not leave his purpose clouded in a
vague, misty and general phraseology, but drew
forth from the regions of happiness and misery
all those pleasures and pains of which happiness
and misery are composed, and of which man's
nature is susceptible. In the pleasures which
the human being can enjoy, in the pains from

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 289

which the human being can be exempted, he
found the elements of the science he taught.
To calculate their number, to weigh their value,
to estimate their results, was the object in
which he was perpetually engaged; and to ga
ther up the greatest possible quantity of felicity
for every man, whether by alleviating suffering
or increasing enjoyments, was the great busi
ness of his life.

These pains and pleasures when applied to
the business of government, whether legislative
or administrative, are but so many elementary
parts of the stock employable by rulers in the
manufacture of human happiness.

The history of the Utilitarian Principle, is the
history of contributions to the stock of happi
ness; it is the history of what has been done,
from time to time, to improve and perfect the
operations of which enjoyment is the result.
The finished work is felicity, and every instru
ment and every workman assisting in its pro
duction, or producing it in a more complete and
enduring shape, is intitled to the honor of co
operation or of discovery.

Those literary works which have led to the
efficient application of the instruments of happi
ness, — those instructions by which advances
have been made from the speculative and unem
ployed principle, towards its use in the business

VOL. i. u

290 HISTORY OF THE

of life, must be considered among the most im
portant auxiliaries in the furtherance of the
triumphs of felicity.

The earliest known mention of the principle
is to be found in the 3rd Satire of Horace (book
first), written a few years before the birth of
Christ. The poet speaks of the opinions held
by the Stoics, that all misdeeds (peccata} stand
on the same level in the scale of ill desert, or
rather should be visited with the same amount
of blame, and thus pursues the topic —

Queis paria esse fere placuit peccata, laborant

Quum ventum ad verum est : sensus moresque repugnant ;

Atque ipsa utilitasjusti prope mater et <equi.

Men's feelings, customs, and utility itself are,
he declares, in hostility with the Stoic theory.
And he is right : the observation, as far as it
goes, if not profound, it is at least correct. It
proposes an end; the end to which justice and
equity lead and are subservient; and yet more,
he avows that, if our ideas of justice and equity
are right, they will have their source in utility.

At a somewhat later period than that in which
Horace flourished, Phaedrus taught a somewhat
similar doctrine.

Nisi utile est quod faceris, stulta est gloria.

Your glory is foolish, unless it is obtained by usefulness.

But, in both Horace and Phsedrus, the men-

'GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 291

tion of utility as a motive to conduct appears
rather accidental than otherwise. Neither of
them seems to have understood the value and
importance of the doctrine they put forward.
In neither case does it occupy the position of a
great and important principle. It was adopted
by no sect ; it was avowed, followed, worshipped
by no votaries. It was wholly in an embryo
state. It had no influential, no presiding power ;
it had not obtained a place in the Elysian fields,
among those aphorisms, written in letters of
light, which ./Eneas found Anchises passing
under review. Unvalued and unheeded, it re
mained, like the truth which dropped by chance
from the heedless pen of Aristotle, — that all
ideas have their origin in the senses; another
magnificent principle whose consequences were
'hidden from the perception of many, many gene
rations. Locke was the first to discern the
value of an observation, whose development
enabled him to subvert the universal empire
usurped by so-called logic, under the command
of Aristotle himself, while David Hume, in 1742,
gave importance to the word Utility.

Hume's Essays recognised Utility as a prin
ciple. He employed the word with much indis
tinctness, sometimes representing the idea of
usefulness — usefulness considered as conducive-
ness to an end, no matter what ; sometimes as

292 HISTORY OF THE

synonymous with conduciveness to happiness as
an end. On no occasion does he intimate, that
the idea of happiness is to be inseparably con
nected with the idea of utility. He speaks of it
as * inhering' to ' a machine, a piece of furniture,
a vestment, a house/ where these are useful
by being conducive to the end that is sought.
He mentions pleasure and pain, but no where
does he present pleasures and exemptions from
pains as the elements, whose aggregate is desig
nated by the word happiness. He introduces,
without any attempt to show their relationship
or dependence, pleasures, pains, desires, emo
tions, affections, passions, interests, virtues,
vices, and other entities, in the direst confusion,
looking like so many equestrians in the ride cal
led Rotten Row ; or dancing before the eyes, as
atoms in the sunshine, undefined and indistinct.'
The reference to a pleasure is like the reference
to utility, vague and unsatisfactory ; the refer
ence to pain, exemption from which is at least as
necessary to happiness as is the presence of plea
sure, is even more vague and distant. No trace is
visible of that analysis by which one sort of plea
sure or pain is distinguishable from another.
Of the elementary component parts of every
mass of good and evil, whether pure or mixed,
no account is taken ; no criterion of right or
wrong is advanced; no answer found for the

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 293

question, ' What ought to be done, and what
left undone ? ' And so as to virtues, — of par
ticular virtues, names in great abundance are
scattered here and there; but as Horace's
Satires placed misdeeds (peccata) all on the
same level, so Hume arranges his virtues in
the same line, drawing no boundary between
them, giving no rules by which they are to
be distinguished from one another. Classified,
indeed, they are, but their classification is of
no assistance to the great and only important
inquiry, as to the proportions in which they
are conducive to happiness. The propositions
that Hume has put forward are thus, for the
most part, vague generalities, a dangerous and
unsatisfactory result, affording no information
to the ignorant, and no comfort to the perplexed
inquirer.

From a mind so acute, and with no interests
opposed to the interests of truth, something
better might have been expected. If, in the
field of law, the whole herd of ordinary writers
are rather engaged in ascertaining what was
or is, instead of what ought to be, their pursuit
is not to be wondered at. The practice, and
not the philosophy of law, is to them the
source of gain ; but it is sorely to be lamented,
that David Hume should have so missed his
mark as not to have seen that pains and plea-

294 HISTORY OF THE

sures were susceptible of different estimates ;
that they represented different values ; that
good and evil were undefined, and really unin
telligible phrases, until they could be divided
into their component parts ; that happiness
itself was but a chimera, until the elements of
which it is made up could be rendered acces
sible to investigation. Hume has left the great
moral questions in the regions of speculation ;
no part of them has he made applicable to
useful purpose by intelligible and distinguish
ing marks. He has exhibited his theory like a
mist in the air, a cloud floating at different levels ;
but never in the form of dew or rain descending
on the earth : it tantalizes the weary traveller,
without contributing any thing towards his
relief.

Hume, however, did this great service. He
pointed out utility as the foundation or corner
stone of a system of morals. He put it for
ward, in contra-distinction to the ground-work
on which another set of philosophers built their
ethical theories ; that ground-work being what
they denominated the moral sense. It was
something to bring the two principles into
contrast. When thoroughly investigated, they
were far as the poles asunder, the moral-sense
principle being only one of the forms of dicta
tion and dogmatism, resolvable into the moral

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 295

sense or opinion of the individual ; while the
principle of utility almost certainly directed
the thoughts towards, if it did not necessarily
lead them into, the regions of pain and pleasure ;
and hence of vice and virtue.

In 1749, Hartley published the first edition
of his work on Man. In it he gave the true
meaning of happiness, by showing that it is
composed of those elements which the differ
ent pleasures furnish. He translated, so to
speak, the language of felicity into the lan
guage of pain and pleasure. He made out a
list of pleasures and a parallel list of pains,
but saw not the bearing of the whole on the
Greatest-Happiness Principle, nor referred to it
under that name, nor under the name of utility,
nor under any other name, as the all-directing
guide in the walk of public and private life.
He advanced beyond his forerunners, and then
stopped short in sight of the shore, upon which
he never landed. This work of Hartley's, Dr
Priestley popularized to a certain extent in an
after edition, from which he expunged what,
in the quaint phraseology once in vogue, was
called the. ' quisquilious matter/

Helvetius wrote, in 1758, his work De
r Esprit, a title for which no adequate transla
tion has been found in our language ; the word,
unfortunately, having no English equivalent.

296 HISTORY OF THE

Great indeed was the contribution which that
book brought to the science of morals and
legislation; but it would be most difficult, in
a few sentences, or even pages, to convey a cor
rect estimate of all it did, and all it left to do.
For sometimes it blazes forth in the splendor
of a mid-day sun, throwing light and truth over
the whole domain of thought and action, — anon
that light is veiled in clouds of darkness, leav
ing the gazer to wonder how it should be so
suddenly withdrawn. There are to be found
flashes of eloquence, rather than the steady
lustre of reason ; the lightning that dazzles, for
a moment, with more than needful splendor,
which the oppressed eye would often fain ex
change for that regular and quiet illumination
which the ordinary lamps of evening provide.

To that book, however, Mr Bentham has
often been heard to say he stood indebted for
no small portion of the zeal and ardor with
which he advocated his happiness-producing
theory. It was from thence he took encou
ragement, flattering his efforts with the assur
ance that they would not be useless. It was
there he learned to persevere, in the conviction
that his power would strengthen, and his field
of usefulness extend. Not that Helvetius had
done the work, which remained to do. He
had not marshalled pains and pleasures, nor

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 297

classified them according to their value; but
he had brought prominently into view the
influence of interest on opinion, and this was a
point overflowing with important consequences.
He laid bare many of those springs of action,
the knowledge of which is absolutely essential
to any thing like a right estimate of conduct
or character. And in showing the subserviency
of opinion to interest, he demonstrated not only
that the opinions publicly advocated were sub
servient, but those privately and even clan
destinely formed. His list of the causes of
misconduct, especially in public men, is as
profoundly philosophical as it is sagaciously
observant. Sinister interest, interest-begotten
prejudice, authority-begotten prejudice, and
primeval or inbred weakness, — in these he saw,
and in these all men may see, the sources of
human infirmity.

Helvetius thus applied the principle of utility
to practical use ; to the direction of human
conduct in the ordinary course of life. On that
'airy nothing,' happiness, he conferred a sub
stantial existence by identifying it with plea
sures, to which he gave ' a local habitation and
a name/ He made utility pregnant with plea
sure, and thus it gave birth to ideas in abun
dance ; ideas of a positive and intelligible cha
racter; ideas so successfully elicited, so attrac-

298 HISTORY OF THE

lively recommended, that they could not but be
continually present and familiar to the most
inattentive, unobservant, and scantily-instructed
minds.

Dr Priestley published his Essay on Govern
ment in 1768. He there introduced, in italics, as
the only reasonable and proper object of govern
ment, ' the greatest happiness of the greatest
number.' It was a great improvement upon
the word utility. It represented the principal
end, the capital, the characteristic ingredient.
It took possession, by a single phrase, of every
thing that had hitherto been done. It went,
in fact, beyond all notions that had preceded it.
It exhibited not only happiness, but it made
that happiness diffusive; it associated it with
the majority, with the many. Dr Priestley's
pamphlet was written, as most of his produc
tions, currente calamo, hastily and earnestly,

' Somehow or other/ to use the words taken
from Mr Bentham's lips, when he was talking
over with the writer what he called the " Adven-
" tures of the Greatest-Happiness Principle, its
" parentage, birth, education, travels, and his-
" tory," — ' Somehow or other, shortly after its
' publication, a copy of this pamphlet found its
« way into the little circulating library belonging
' to a little coffee-house, called Harper's coffee-
' house, attached, as it were, to Queen's College,

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 299

4 Oxford, and deriving, from the popularity of
4 that college, the whole of its subsistence. It

* was a corner house, having one front towards

* the High street, another towards a narrow lane,

* which on that side skirts Queen's College,
4 and loses itself in a lane issuing from one of
4 the gates of New College. To this library
4 the subscription was a shilling a quarter, or
4 in the University phrase, a shilling a term.

* Of this subscription the produce was composed
4 of two or three newspapers, with magazines
4 one or two, and now and then a newly-pub-
4 lished pamphlet ; a moderate-sized octavo was
4 a rare, if ever exemplified spectacle: composed
4 partly of pamphlets, partly of magazines, half-
4 bound together, a few dozen volumes made
4 up this library, which formed so curious a
4 contrast with the Bodleian Library, and those
4 of Christ's Church and All Soul's.

4 The year 17G8 was the latest of the years in
4 which I ever made at Oxford a residence of
4 more than a day or two. The motive of that
4 visit was the giving my vote, in the quality of
4 Master of Arts, for the University of Oxford,
4 on the occasion of a parliamentary election ;
4 and not being at that time arrived at the age of
4 twenty-one, this deficiency in the article of age
4 might have given occasion to an election contest
4 in the House of Commons, had not the majority

300 HISTORY OF THE

• been put out of doubt by a sufficient number of
' votes not exposed to contestation. This year,
' 1768, was the latest of all the years in which
' this pamphlet could have come into my hands.
' Be this as it may, it was by that pamphlet, and
' this phrase in it, that my principles on the sub-
' ject of morality, public and private together,
' were determined. It was from that pamphlet
' and that page of it, that I drew the phrase, the
' words and import of which have been so widely
' diffused over the civilized world. At the sight

* of it, I cried out, as it were in an inward ecstasy,
' like Archimedes on the discovery of the funda-
' mental principle of hydrostatics, Evpwa. Little
' did I think of the correction which, within a
' few years, on a closer scrutiny, I found myself
' under the necessity of applying to it.'

Long before this period, the mind of Bentham
had been taken possession of by the Utilitarian
principle. At a very early age, he had been
annoyed beyond measure, and scarcely less
annoyed than disgusted, by what he then called
4 Ciceronian trash.'

' I had not completed my thirteenth year,' to
use his own words, 'when at Queen's College,
' Oxford, the task was imposed on me, not, in-
' deed, by my academical instructors, but by a
' not less irresistible authority, the task of ren-
' dering into English that work of Cicero which

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 301

* is known by the title of The Tusculan Ques-

* tions, or Tusculan Dissertations. Pain, I there

* learnt, was no evil. Virtue was, and is, of
' itself, sufficient to confer happiness on any man
' who is disposed to possess it on these terms.
' What benefit, in any shape, could be derived
4 from impregnating the memory with such non-
' sense? What instruction from a self-contradic-
' tory proposition, or any number of any such

* propositions ? When it happens to a man to
' have a pain, whether in the head or the great
' toe, or any intermediate part of the bodily
' frame, can he, by saying to himself or to any

* body else, that pain is no evil, drive the pain
' away, or diminish it at all ?

'As to virtue, — to have shown in how many dif-
' ferent ways, or though it were but one way, it
' contributes, as it really does, to happiness, this
' would have been of some use, and might have
' been made of great use. But to say that vir-
' tue is .of itself to produce and maintain happi-
' ness, whatsoever be a man's condition in other
' respects, is merely giving utterance to a
' position directly in the teeth of universal and

* constant experience. To have given a definition

* to the word virtue would have been something,
' and this is what the Greatest-Happiness Prin-
' ciple will enable a man to do. But if you see

* a man suffering under a fit of the gout, or the

302 HISTORY OF THE

/.

' stone, or the tic-douloureux, to inform hint that

* he is happy, or that if he is not, it is for want of

* virtue, would this be any relief to him? Would
*l it not rather be a cruel mockery and insult ?

' This was the sort of trash which a set of men
' used to amuse themselves with talking while pa-
' rading backwards and forwards in colonnades,
' called porches : that is to say, the Stoics, so
' called from stva, the Greek name for a porch.
' In regard to these the general notion has been,
' that compared with our contemporaries in the

* same ranks, they were, generally speaking, a
' good sort of men ; and assuredly, in all times,

* good sort of men, talking ; all their lives long,
' nonsense, in an endless variety of shapes, never
' have been wanting ; but that, from talking non-

* sense in this or any other shape, they or their
' successors have, in any way or degree, been

* the better, this is what does not follow.'

Mr Bentham's Fragment on Government was
published in 1776. It produced no little sen
sation in the world. The fame of Black-
stone's Commentaries was at its very height,
and it was the first successful attempt to lower
the reputation, and curtail the influence of that
eloquent flatterer of all English abuses ; that
indiscriminating worshipper of good and evil.
Dr Johnson attributed the work to Dunning ; and
Mr Bentham confesses that he had, to a great

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE, 303

%

extent, made Running's style the model of his
own, having been struck by its * precision, cor
rectness, clearness, guardedness in expression,
and closeness in argumentation.' The imme
diate object of the 'Fragment* was, to destroy
the foolish fable of ' original contract/ upon which
lawyers had been long in the habit of raising
the edifice of government ; and the instrument
used for the overthrow of an assumption so
groundless was the principle of utility, and
with that principle in hand complete was the
demolition of the great Commentator's theory.
In the ' Fragment/ however, the language of hap
piness is not substituted to that of utility, — both
terms are employed, as if convertible, and trans
lated, as it were, one into the other. Beyond
this primary step the ' Fragment* did not proceed.
Neither was the word utility, nor the word hap
piness analysed into its component elements.
Pains and pleasures are not brought into view,
still less are they divided into their different
species, or classified according to their separate
or com parative value. Mr Bentham has often
said, so intimate in his own mind was then the
association between utility and happiness, that
he could scarcely fancy the ideas separated in
the mind of any man. Whatever was left un
done by the ' Fragment/ it succeeded in anni
hilating the 'original contract' scheme. Mr

304 HISTORY OF THE

Bentham's first quarrel with the dogma grew
from his observation of the purposes to which it
was turned, in order to justify law-abuses, and
to oppose the most necessary reforms in the
administration of justice. The dogma had been
introduced into the world under the sanction of
John Locke's great name ; but before Bentham
had attained the age of sixteen he was dis
gusted, while sitting at the feet of Blackstone,
by the use which that smooth sophist made of
it in his lectures for the justification of the abo
minations of misrule. ' I determined to grapple
with it,' he says, in one of his memoranda ; ' I
determined to fling it to the grou™:!, ! did so,
and no man has since ventured to raise it up,
and give support to it/

The ascetic philosophy received a mortal
wound from Mr Bentham, by his exposure of
it in the ' Introduction to Morals and Legis
lation.' No man is, perhaps, now to be found
who would contend, that the pursuit of pain
ought to be the great object of existence, how
ever he might deem the infliction of certain
pains upon himself meritorious and virtuous. No
man will now deny, that there are occasions on
which pleasure may reasonably and morally be
pursued as an end, or on which the avoidance of
pain may be alike an interest and a duty. But
he who contends that the pursuit of a balance

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 305

of pleasure is an offence in any case, is bound
to produce that case, and to show the grounds
of its exception from the general rule. On him
the onus probandi rests with all its force. In
the monkish ages the demon of asceticism ruled
in his sanguinary power. That demon was alike
the creator of misery and the father of lies.
Come what may of the Greatest-Happiness Prin
ciple, its open antagonist is silenced for ever.

In fact, asceticism is characterised by every
thing that is mischievous, absurd, inconsistent,
and self-contradictory, — all heightened in the
very proportion in which the ascetic principle is
called into action. What is mischievous, if it
be not mischievous to create misery ? What is
absurd, if not the doctrine which would induce
its supporter to dash his head against the wall,
since, according to him, to create suffering is
the proper ultimate end of human action? What
is inconsistent, unless a creed be so which is
belied by every practice of a man's existence ?
And what is self-contradiction but absurdity
and inconsistency, exhibited in their most fla
grant forms, and pushed to all the extremes of
folly and delusion ?

But to dispose of the indirect antagonists of
the Greatest-Happiness Principle is not quite
so easy. Ipse-dixitism is a very Proteus, assum
ing every conceivable shape which caprice and

VOL. i. x

306 HISTORY OF THE

arrogance can form or fancy. Its progenitor
is despotism ; its offspring every species of
absurdity.

John Locke's misconceptions of the end and
object of government were not only exhibited
in his * original contract* theory, but in the ex
tremely narrow \iew taken by him of the
regions of pains and pleasures, and by that
notion of his that morals and politics are ex
plainable by the mere exhibition of the rela
tions which one word bears to another. Again,
his doctrine respecting uneasiness as the cause
of action — as if a man enjoying certain plea
sures could not seek other pleasures in addition,
shows how vaguely the ideas of pleasure pre
sented themselves to his mind. By his theory
of the ' original contract,' an end of government
is advocated independently and in preference
to that of its conduciveness to the felicity of the
community. And this end, even were it a fact,
and not the fable, the fiction, and the falsehood
which it is, would be wholly unworthy to com
pete with the Greatest-Happiness Principle.
For though in most cases observance of con
tracts is demanded by that principle, yet their
observance in every conceivable case would be
destructive of it. Suppose a contract entered
into by one individual for the commission of a
crime, must that contract be deemed sacred?

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 307

And what must be said of the contrivance by
which every body would be bound to a con
tract, the operation of which might be the
destruction of pleasures, and the continuation of
pains, even after experience had proved that
the pleasures might be preserved and the pains
alienated by setting the contract aside ?

It is by thus substituting a partial and subor
dinate, to the only legitimate and comprehen
sive end of government, that misrule has found
a terrible instrument of power. By this sort of
appeal to promise, and to contract, adherence
and support have been given to principles and
conduct the most deleterious and maleficent.

By fear or hope, in a word, by corruption in
any shape, exercised by a ruler or rulers, decla
rations are extorted to \vlv\c\x \\\e sanction o? an
oath is frequently given, that a particular line of
conduct shall, at all events and under all circum
stances, be maintained. Such promises are among
the strongest holds that despotism has upon its
devotees, and hence the quarrel of despotism
with the Greatest-Happiness Principle. As a
matter of history, such engagements have rarely
been entered into between rulers and nations,
and if they had they would be of no value ; no
more binding on posterity than the engagements
of a drunken man. If the engagement were con
sonant with the Greatest-Happiness Principle,

308

HISTORY OF THE

the recognition of that principle would be far
better than the engagement ; if opposed to it,
if the object or practical end be the production
of crime, evil, or human suffering, removable
by its removal, who will contend for its
continuance ?

If there be cause for mourning in the world,
it is that men of powerful talents, comprehensive
minds, and generous affections, are so often
engaged in closing their own eyes, or the eyes
of others, and keeping them closed against the
light of reason and experience !

In holding up to view the rights of property
as the sole foundation for justice, Locke had lost
sight of a great variety of other topics, upon
which maleficence might be exercised by indi
viduals — that maleficence requiring in conse
quence to be inhibited by governments. Power,
reputation, condition in life, exemption from
pains, and other possessions, (for language does
not give an apter word) which demand protec
tion from the civil and the penal code, are pas
sed over in silence.

Sad, unguarded, infelicitous, was in truth
that ill-considered definition, — that attempt to
lay with such loose materials the foundation of
human happiness, as resting alone upon justice
and the rights of property. Sad the triumphs
which, by a designing and uncandid antagonist,

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 309

might on this occasion have been 'reaped over
that honest, candid, and in every respect amia
ble mind ! Property the only thing intitled to
be the object of care to government ! Posses
sors of property, accordingly, the only persons
intitled to be objects of that same care ! The
possessor of property the only person intitled
to be represented in and by a representative
body forming part and parcel of the sovereign
authority ! The poor, in a body, held up as
a community which the rich, in a body, are
intitled to make slaves of, and for ever treat as
such ! Corporeal slavery, a state of things still
worse, perhaps, than political slavery ; a state
of things the production and maintenance of
which is a proper object of government! The
meridian of the West Indies is the meridian where
the supposed champion of liberty and good
government would find a striking application
of his theory! For, indeed, with but too much
reason might the theory of John Locke have
been employed for the defence of slavery, — for
the defence of boundless mischief, — for the
defence of boundless misery.

The case is, that in the mind of this philoso
pher, — to whom, after all, the debt owed by
mankind is so indisputable, real and extensive,
— experience had not at that time at least, gone
beyond aristocracy, the opulent rulers and influ-

310 HISTORY OF THE

ential few ; the people, the unopulent and
subject many, had not as yet fallen within the
sphere of his observation, or arrived at an ap
parent importance necessary to the being num
bered among the objects of his care.

That, in respect of experience, such was the
state of his mind, that in the application of that
experience his views of morals, politics, and
legislation, as the consequence, were very
limited and imperfect, is evidenced in and by
his constitution for one of the Carolinas : a per
formance which from that day down to this has
never been spoken of in any other character
than that of a failure.

He is, accordingly, the most adored of all the
idols which, within the temple of British devo
tion, lay claim to the worship of those whose
political Bible is the matchless and all-perfect
constitution emanating from the glorious Revo
lution of 1688, with Protestant despotism and
Catholic slavery among its immediate blessings.

It was in 1785 that Paley published his
Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy. He
mentions the principle of utility, but seems to
have no idea of its bearing upon happiness.
And if he had any such idea, he was the last
man to give expression to it. He wrote for the
youth of Cambridge, of one of the colleges of
which he was tutor. In that meridian, eyes

GREATEST-HA4>PJNESS PRINCIPLE. 311

were not strong enough, nor did he desire they
should be strong enough, to endure the light
from the orb of utilitarian felicity. Insincere
himself, and the bold, oft-declared advocate of
insincerity, what could be expected from his
courage or his virtue? Over his bottle, those
who knew him, knew that he was the self-
avowed lover and champion of corruption, rich
enough to keep an equipage, but not (as he
himself declared) to 'keep a conscience.' For
the remaining twenty years of his life, his book
was the text-book of the universities ; but he left
the utilitarian controversy as he found it; not
even honoring the all-beneficent principle with
an additional passing notice,

It was in the year 1789, that the ' Introduc
tion to the Principles of Morals and Legislation'
appeared. Here, for the first time, are pains
and pleasures separately defined, and regularly
grouped; and the classification and definition of
them is so complete for all ordinary purposes of
moral and legislative investigation, that Mr
Bentham, in after life, found little to modify or
to add to in the list. By the side of the pains
and the pleasures, the corresponding motives are
brought to view, and a clear and determinate
idea attached to the springs of action by show
ing their separate operation. And, moreover, the
author uncovers and sifts that phraseology which

312 HISTORY OF THE

has done so much mischief in the field of right
and wrong by the judgment of motives, instead of
the judgment of conduct, so that the same motive
is frequently spoken of in terms opposed to and
incompatible with one another. Sometimes the
eulogistic form is adopted, to convey sentiments
of approbation ; sometimes the dyslogistic, to
communicate sentiments of disapprobation ;
sometimes the neutral, to avoid the expression
of either praise or blame ; but in all cases these
irrelevant and delusive adjuncts serve to bewil
der inquiry, and to distort truth. Of this truly
extraordinary and philosophical volume, it has
chanced to the writer to hear the opinion of
several of the most acute and distinguished
men of the present day (not of the Utilitarian
school) who, after a discussion as to what
literary work ought to be considered the most
remarkable intellectual production of the last
century, unanimously decided that the ' Intro
duction to the Principles of Morals and Legis
lation T was intitled to that honor. In the later
years of Mr Bentham's life he was far from
deeming it complete. He had not taken man's
interests and man's desires into his list, and he
employed the phraseology of utility instead of
that of happiness.

The first part of Chrestomathia was published
in 1810, the second part in the year following.

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 313

Its principal object was, to bring together the
several branches of art and science, and to
exhibit their conduciveness to happiness; to
point out their relationship to each other through
this their common property, and to give the
whole that direction which, as a result, should
produce the maximization of felicity. It was
as early as 17G9 that Bentham's mind was
occupied with this topic. Even then he fancied
that happiness might be made the common
trunk to support all the branches of know
ledge, forming together a perfect encyclopae
dical tree. In Lord Bacon's writings he found
planted the pristine tree ; it was in some sort
improved by D'Alembert ; but neither the
English nor the French philosopher had taken
any notice of that most useful of properties,
to which all arts and sciences tend, and to
which alone they are indebted for any value
they possess. The trees they sought to plant
had, however, never taken root, and, in the
presence of Bentham's nobler production, must
be considered as mere cumberers of the ground.
It was in 1817 that 'The Table of the
Springs of Action' appeared. The purpose of
the author was to facilitate comparisons of and
observations on the mutual relations between
pains and pleasures, inducements or motives,
desires and interests. lie endeavored to make

314 HISTORY OF THE

the list complete of all the elements that influ
ence conduct. While, in his previous writings,
pains, pleasures, and motives had been the
principal topics of inquiry, Mr Bentham added,
on this occasion, the corresponding desires and
interests, proposing, as a means of consistency
and completeness, the designation of each inte
rest by a particular name. Helvetius had in
some cases attached names to interests, and
Mr Bentham proposed to perfect the nomen
clature, and to assist the association between
all the points of comparison, by presenting the
topics in a tabular form. To these Tables he
subjoined notes, explaining and giving deter
minate expression to other psychological terms,
such as passions, virtues, vices, moral good,
moral evil, and so forth, showing their connec
tion with the objects displayed in the Tables.
Though the Greatest-Happiness Principle was
constantly in view— the now all-ruling influ
ence in Mr Bentham's mind — no reference is
made to it by name in ' The Springs of Action/
This volume is, however, the evidence of a
great progress in utilitarian philosophy. The
operations of motives on conduct had been
most lucidly explained in the « Introduction to
Morals and Legislation/ Motives, the source
of action in all its modifications, are brought
into association with all the pleasures and pains

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 315

they are able to influence : a motive, in fact,
being only the fear of some pain from a certain
mode of action, which pain the will is urged
to avoid, or the hope of a pleasure which the
will is urged to create. The ' Springs of Ac
tion' did for interests what the * Introduction*
did for motives ; they also drew the distinction
between motives and desires. To each desire
Bentham attached the adjectives by which the
desire had been qualified, in order to suit the
purpose of the speakers or writers who had
occasion to refer to it, either in terms of praise
or blame, the very same desire having ordinarily
three designations, one laudatory, one vitupe-
ratory, and the other neutral.

Having observed the prodigious extent to
which these collateral adjuncts are in use, as
instruments of delusion and deception, espe
cially in the hands of interested deceivers, it
occurred to him that it would be a useful ser
vice to mark out, and, as it were, give warning
of the characteristic difference between the
three classes, by means of appropriate deno
minations. Accordingly, for the designation of
the cas^ in which, to the idea of desire the
idea of disapprobation, as existing in the mind
of him who is speaking of it, is attached, he
employed the epithet dyslogistic; as a synonyme,
he might have added disapprobative: and, for

316 HISTORY OF THE

the designation of the case in which, to the
idea of desire, the idea of approbation, as exist
ing in the mind of him who is speaking of it,
is attached, he employed the epithet eulogistic ;
as a synonyme, he might have added appro-
bative.

Mr Bentham has mentioned, that, in all his
pursuits and inquiries, one idea was constantly
operating on his mind. !f Bacon, with his
' Experimentalize ! ' was justly honored for doing
more than any man who had preceded him, for
the diffusion of the philosophy of physics, Ben
tham, with his ever-present maxim — 'Observe!1
— is intitled to the first rank among those who
have successfully labored for the advancement
of the philosophy of morals.

The phenomena of the material world, not
only as they present themselves, but also as
they can be made to present themselves,
together with the relations in the way of cause
and effect that appear to have place between
them, may, without reserve (so as injury to
persons and things be avoided) be taken for
subjects of experiment as well as observation,
when applied to the material world : in the
case of moral and political science, the proper
subject-matters of observation are pains and
pleasures, as they respectively result from
the several modifications of which human con

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 317

duct, or say human agency, is susceptible.
Without reserve, these may be taken for sub
ject-matters of observation : but, not without
great reserve and caution, for subjects of expe
riment ; especially in the case where the insti-
tutor of the experiment is any other person
than the sovereign, or a person or persons con
stituted for the purpose, in authority under
him. Accordingly, it is by the observation of
the occasions on which, and shapes in which
pain and pleasure result from the modes of
agency respectively productive of them — pains
more especially — that Mr Bentham ascertains
the quantity and quality of the applications
necessary as remedies for the evils which actions
of the maleficent class bring in their train :
and while the graphic pencil is engaged in
the delineation of their respective qualities or
forms, — scales, with weights and measures, are
at the same time to be kept employed in giving
intimation of their respective quantities.

In the application of legislation to the pur
poses of life, the legislator has only the choice
of evils. There can be no government without
coercion ; no coercion without suffering ; and,
separately considered, that coercion must be
an evil. The punitory functions of government
consist in the application of that evil to the
individual misdoers, for the purpose of obtain-

318 HISTORY OF THE

ing, in the interests of the community, an
exemption from greater evils, or a production
of pleasures of greater value than the sufferings
created by its coercive interposition.

It is thus that the Greatest-Happiness Prin
ciple brings the legislator into the field of
particular pains and pleasures, and the first
emanation of that principle is the ' disappoint
ment-prevention/ or, as Mr Bentham more
habitually called it, the 'non-disappointment*
principle. Upon this the laws of property have
their sole foundation ; for if no disappointment
were felt — no pains suffered from the loss of
property — no demand would there be for penal
visitation in cases of the violation of what are
called the rights of property. Let disappoint
ment, as far as possible, be prevented. Why pre
vented ? Because disappointment cannot have
place without pain. Inseparably connected
with the idea of disappointment is that of
expectation — of agreeable expectation. The
disappointment prevents the expectation from
being realized. The legislator's business is to
protect the subject from the sufferings of that
disappointment.

An observation made to Mr Bentham by
Lady Holland produced a great impression upon
him. She said that his doctrine of utility
put a veto upon pleasure ; while he had been

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 319

fancying that pleasure never found so valuable
and influential an ally as the principle of utility.
It was clear, therefore, that the word ' utility*
not only failed in communicating to other minds
the ideas which Bentham attached to it, but
that to some minds it communicated ideas
wholly different and opposed to them. And
true it i*, that unless the Greatest-Happiness
Principle be recognized as the end, the doctrine
of utility might be represented as useful to
some other end. And if the pursuit of pleasure
were assumed as worthy of disapprobation,
utility would teach abstention from that pursuit.
Dissatisfaction, therefore, with utilitarian phra
seology, gradually increased in Bentham's
mind.

The phrase ' greatest happiness of the great
est number' was first employed by Mr Bentham
in 1822, in his ' Codification Proposal.' Every
suggestion there put forward is made to turn
upon the requirements of the ' greatest happi
ness of the greatest number.' In this work,
happiness, utility, pains and pleasures, are con
stantly introduced for the purposes of explain
ing one another ; and the augmentation of the
felicity of all, by the increase of pleasures, and
the exemption from pains, is the constantly pre
sent theme.

In our language, and in every known language,

320 HISTORY OF THE

the advance of philosophy is greatly retarded
by the want of appropriate expressions. If with
the word ' utility * the idea of happiness could
have been habitually and irrevocably associated,
' utilitarianism' would have conveniently repre
sented the Greatest-Happiness Principle, and
* utilitarians3 its advocates and supporters. And
hitherto it has been almost necessary to use
the terms which have indeed received a certain
currency. Bentham once thought of proposing
the employment of the word Eudaimonology, to
represent the utilitarian doctrines, and Eudai-
monologians its professors. To those acquainted
with Greek the meaning would be sufficiently
obvious ; but that acquaintance is so rare, that
he did not venture to recommend the terms to
general adoption. Besides, custom must be
departed from in not rendering the word Euda-
monology ; and in such a shape umbrage might
be given to men of pious minds, who would
possibly associate with it the idea of a doctrine,
art, or science, of which devils were the sub
ject. Hereafter, when the principle shall have
made new conquests in other lands, and especi
ally in those, the roots of whose languages are
Latin, some terms may be found making way to
general acceptance. Fettcitism, or Feliritarian-
isnit — Felicitists, or Felicitarians, may then put
forward their claim. The word 'felicity' has

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 321

already two conjugates, to felicitate, and felt*
citous* The increase of the number of conju*
gates would be of important asvsistance to lan
guage; but for our purpose the idea of ' greatest*
is needful, and the Felicity-maximizing princi
ple will, perhaps, be found the most convenient
of all the terms hitherto employed.

The Gothic branch of our language unfortu
nately does not lend itself to the wants of the
utilitarian. There is no making one word of
* Greatest Happiness;' still more difficult is it to
extract from its roots the substitutes for those
conjugates which the Latin will supply.

The antagonist to the felicity-maximizing is,
the ipse-dixit principle, and there is no reason
why the ipse-dixit root should not produce all
the branches necessary to discourse, — as ipse-
divitists, and ipse-dixitism.

It is scarcely out of place, by the way, to
state here, in answer to those who have so fre-
quently animadverted on Mr Bentham's unusual
terms, that there is no topic on which his mind
was more habitually occupied than in the search
of fit terms to convey his ideas. No man was
ever more impressed with the importance of
appropriate nomenclature, as the necessary
instrument for logical reasoning, for introducing
and disseminating correct ideas. It was the
ambition of a Roman emperor to plant a word

VOL. i. Y

322 HISTORY OF THE

which should be allowed by after times to grow,
Two words, at least, have been planted by
Bentham, and adopted into our language, — the
adjective international, the noun codification, with
its conjugates, to codify and codifiers; and
though he can hardly be said to have introduced
the verbs to maximize and to minimize, with their
correspondent nouns, he has certainly given
them that currency, and attached to them that
value, which afford the assurance of their escap
ing the doom of oblivion.

But even the words which are every day in
the mouth of every man are constantly employed
without any accurate understanding of their
precise or real meaning. Virtue and vice, justice
and injustice, what are they ? By nothing but
in connection with the Greatest-Happiness Prin
ciple can any clear or useful application be
made of them, or any of them. Whenever,
indeed, they are employed, there is some refer
ence, implied or expressed, to one of these prin
ciples, — the Greatest-Happiness Principle, or
the principle directly opposed to it, that is, the
ascetic principle, or the dogmatic principle of
ipse-dixitism. For the end in view, the stand
ard of right and wrong must be either happi
ness or unhappiness, or else some opinion which
is put forward as sufficient in itself to deter
mine the standard. The appellative of ipse-

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 323

dixitism is not a new one ; it comes down to us
from an antique and high authority, —it is the
principle recognised (so Cicero informs us) by
the disciples of Pythagoras. Ipse (he, the mas
ter, Pythagoras), ipse dixit, — he has said it ; the
master has said that it is so ; therefore, say the
disciples of the illustrious sage, therefore so it is.

When the 'Introduction to Morals and Legis
lation ' was published, Bentham imagined that
the principle of sympathy and antipathy was to
be considered the groundwork of one of the
theories of morals. In after life, he discovered
that this was only the dogmatic, or ipse-dixit
principle divided into two branches : — the
branch of sympathy applying reward, that of
antipathy, punishment ; but, wherever disasso
ciated from the Greatest-Happiness Principle,
being really nothing but the authority of the
ipse-dixit doctrine.

The principle of caprice was the appellative
that afterwards occurred to, and has been em
ployed by him for the designation of that branch
of the ipse-dixit principle which applies to the
civil, or non-penal branch of law, including
every portion not comprised within the denomi
nation of the penal ; the civil, or non-penal,
over which, in his view of the matter, the non-
disappointment principle presides.

To return to virtue and vice. By virtue,

324 HISTORY OF THE

under the direction of the Greatest-Happiness
Principle, is understood that line of conduct and
correspondent disposition, which is conducive to
happiness : by vice, that which is conducive to
unhappiness. In the case of the virtue one
addition, however, and that productive of a
limitative effect, requires to be made ; this is
that of the sort of action denominated virtuous,
the exercise requires more or less of self-
denial : that is to say, of a sacrifice made of the
present good, whether pleasure or exemption
from pain, to some greater good to come. For
keeping the position in question within the pale
of truth, this limitative adjunct is altogether
indispensable. And the evidence that it is so is
irresistible. Among the actions, by the exercise
of which the existence of the individual is con-
tinued, and among them of those by which
pleasure is experienced, or pain averted and
excluded, small is the proportion of those by
which virtue, in any shape, can with propriety
be said to be exercised. Why? Because, in
the exercise made of them, no self-denial, no
sacrifice of the present to the future good is
made. Thus it is, for example, with the plea
sures of sense in general.

But here comes in an objection. Suppose a
man to have his appetites and desires of all
sorts in such complete subjection, that, in the

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 325

sacrifice of the lesser present to the greater
future good, no uneasiness is experienced,
nothing that can be called self -denial is prac
tised. Of such a man will you say, that, in
his mental frame virtue is on a lower level, in
the scale of perfection, than in the case of one
in whom the contest between the lesser present
and greater future good, or, according to Dean
Swift's emblem, the game of leap-frog between
flesh and spirit, is continually renewed ? No,
assuredly. But for this not less true is it, that
to the applying with propriety to a man's habit
and disposition the appellatives virtue and virtu
ous, the supposition of the existence of reluc
tance and self-denial in the character of an ac
companiment of an ingredient in the habit is
indispensable ; at the time in question no such
unpleasant sensation has place, but at some
anterior point of time it had place ; only in the
intervening space of time it has been gradually
worn away ; as a laborious exertion by long
habit becomes pleasurable.

The Greatest-Happiness Principle is not only
attacked by prinriplr.s oprnly mid proflwt'illy

opposed to it ; it has had to suffer from covert
and influential usurpers of its name and
authority ; and from such sources it has
perhaps been most injured. Reference has
been made and homage paid to it by principles

326 HISTORY OF THE

which have claimed alliance with it, while they
have, in fact, been only subordinate to ipse-
dixitism. This has been too ofjen the position
of the preachers of ' Justice, '—men, who, under
the cloak and covering of an attractive title,
have generally strung together their directions
precepts, mandates — call them what you will —
saying to every body who will listen, ' Do so and
so, for this is what is required by justice/ Two
assumptions are here, and both are represen
tatives of the ipse-dixit system: — first, that
justice is the proper and sufficient standard of
reference ; and second, that this which you are
required to do is dictated by justice, — assump
tions (need it be said ?) both unsupported by
argument, both gratuitous and dogmatical.

When Mr Godwin took ' Political Justice ' for
the title of his well-known work, he committed
an act of insubordination, not to say rebellion,
or high treason, against the sovereignty of the
only legitimate, all-ruling principle.

Justice is subservient to the Greatest-Happi
ness Principle, or it is not : its dictates teach
the minimization of misery, and the maximiza
tion of happiness, or they do not. If they do,
and as far as they do, they are in accordance
with that principle, and they represent it.

But, suppose their dictates differ, suppose
there is dissonance, hostility between the two,

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 327

which is to succumb ? Justice or happiness,—
the end or the means ?

In order to a proper intelligence and applica
tion of the meaning of the word justice, it must
be divided into its two branches, civil and
penal ; for nothing can be more vague, obscure,
and unsatisfactory, than the ideas attached to
the word justice, as it is ordinarily applied.

Civil justice is the recognition of proprietary
rights in all their shapes, whether as objects of
desire, or of possessed value. To 'invade the
proprietor of them in his expectations or pos
sessions, or to deprive him of them, is to create
in his mind the pains of disappointment, — pains,
which the felicity-maximizing principle requires
to be averted. This disappointment-preventing
principle stands second in importance to the
happiness-creating principle.

The penal branch of civil justice presents a
different aspect. Its purpose is to minimize
wrongs. Its means are preventive, suppres-
sive, satisfactive, and punitive. It is only in as
far as wrongs are the cause of unhappiness that
there is any demand for penalties. To reduce
the aggregate of wrongs, and thereby the
sources of suffering growing out of them, and
to do this at the least cost of pain, is the de
mand of that justice which is in alliance with
the Greatest-Happiness Principle. But under

OOQ

*3*3 -HrSTORY'OT THE- -i « /. .Ut.

the Tiame of justice verjr : different objects, and
those to be accomplished by very different ends,
are frequently proposed,1

In the later years of Mr Bentham's life the
phrase 'Greatest happiness of the greatest num
ber ' appeared, on a closer scrutiny, to be want
ing in that clearness and correctness which had
originally recommended it to his notice and
adoption. And these are the reasons for his
change of opinion, given in his own words: —

' Be the community in question what it may,
' divide it into two unequal parts ; call one of
'them the majority, the other the minority; lay
' out of the account the feelings of the minority ;
' include in the account no feelings but those of
'the majority, — you will find, that to the aggre-
' gate stock of the happiness of the community,
'loss, not profit, is the result of the operation.
' Of this proposition the truth will be the more
4 palpable, the greater the ratio of the number of
'the minority to that of the majority; in other
'words, the less the difference between the two
' unequal parts; and suppose the undivided parts
' equal, the quantity of the error will then be at
* its maximum.

' Number of the majority suppose 2001,
' number of the minority, 2000. Suppose, in
'the first place, the stock of happiness in such
' sort divided, that by every one of the 4001 an

GREATEST-HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. 329

' equal portion of happiness shall be possessed.
4 Take now from every one of the 2000 his share
' of happiness, and divide it any how among the
' 2001 : instead of augmentation, vast is the
' diminution you will find to be the result. The
' feelings of the minority being, by the supposi-
4 tion, laid intirely out of the account (for such,
4 in its enlarged form, is the import of the propo-
4 sition), the vacuum thus left may, instead of
'remaining a vacuum, be filled with unhappiness,
4 positive suffering, in magnitude, intensity, and

* duration taken together, the greatest which it is
' in the power of human nature to endure.

4 Take from your 2000, and give to your 2001
' all the happiness you find your 2000 in pos-
4 session of : insert, in the room of the happiness
' you have taken out, unhappiness in as large
4 a quantity as the receptacle will contain : to
' the aggregate amount of the happiness pos-
4 sessed by the 4001 taken together, will the
4 result be net profit ? on the contrary, the whole
4 profit will have given place to loss. How so ?
' because so it is, that such is the nature of the

* receptacle, the quantity of unhappiness it is
4 capable of containing, during any given portion
' of time, is greater than the quantity of hap-
4 piness.

4 At the outset, place your 4001 in a state of
' perfect equality, in respect of the means,
VOL. i. x

330 HISTORY OF THE

'or say, instruments of happiness, and in par-
' ticular, power and opulence : every one of them
'in a state of equal liberty; every one indepen-
' dent of every other : every one of them pos-
' sessing an equal portion of money and money's
' worth : in this state it is that you find them,
'.Taking in hand now your 2000, reduce them
'to a state of slavery, and, no matter in what
' proportions of the slaves thus constituted, divide
'the whole number with such, their property,
'among your 2001; the operation performed,
'of the happiness of what number will an
'augmentation be the result? The question
' answers itself.

* Were it otherwise, note now the practical
'application that would be to be made of it in
' the British Isles. In Great Britain, take the
'whole body of the Roman Catholics, make
'slaves of them, and divide them in any pro-
' portion, them and their progeny, among the
'whole body of the Protestants. In Ireland,
' take the whole body of the Protestants, and
' divide them, in like manner, among the whole
' body of the Roman Catholics.'

The danger of putting forward any proposi
tion as a leading principle, other than that
which would maximize felicity, consists in this
—that if it coincide with the greater principle
it is supererogatory; if it do not coincide, it is

GREATEST-HAZINESS PRINCIPLE. 331

pernicious. Any principle that is not subordi
nate to it may be opposed to it, either diametri
cally or collaterally. The ascetic principle, if
all-comprehensive and consistent, may be evi
denced as one of direct opposition, — the ipse-
dixit principles of all sorts may be ranked
among the indirect opponents. Qui non sub
me contra me. * He who is not under me is
against me/ may be said with figurative or meta
phorical truth by the Greatest-Happiness Prin
ciple, and with literal truth by every one of its
partisans. And let not this declaration be taken
as the result of arrogance of disposition : it
grows out of the nature of things, and the ne
cessities of the case. Let it not be considered
to bespeak unkindness towards any advocate of
the opposite opinions, for such unkindness is
neither its necessary, nor even its natural
accompaniment.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

LONDON:

C. ANT W. HKYNKLL, PRINTERS,
LITTLE PUI-TENEY STREKT, HAYMARKET.

ERRATA TO VOL, I.

PAGE

26 for ' obteperous/ read 'obstreperous.'

53 four lines from bottom, dele ' be/

89 for * remunatory,' read ' remuoeratory.1

143 first line, for « garding,' read * regarding.'

167 5 lines from bottom, for « the interest in a family/ retd ' the interest

Jelt in a family,'

1 69 10 lines from top, for « these thoughts,' read ' their thoughts.

204 13 lines from top, for ' sactiou ' read • sanction.'

236 6 lines from top, for* in,* read « for.'

~

<m*

v.l

"-JAN 9 -1966

Bentham, Jeremy
1006 Deontology *

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