the will of God, and for the sake
of everlasting happiness." Of this definition it may be said, 1. The doing
good to mankind is indeed virtue; but it is by no means the whole of
virtue. 2. Obedience to the will of God is our duty; but it is so, because
his will must of necessity be in accordance with the fitting and right.
Could we conceive of Omnipotence commanding what is intrinsically unfit
and wrong, the virtuous man would not be the God-server, but the
Prometheus suffering the implacable vengeance of an unrighteous Deity. 3.
Though everlasting happiness be the result of virtue, it is not the ground
or the reason for it. Were our being earth-limited, virtue would lose none
of its obligation. Epictetus led as virtuous a life as if heaven had been
open to his faith and hope.--Paley's system may be described in detail as
Shaftesbury's, with an external washing of Christianity; Shaftesbury
having been what was called a free-thinker, while Paley was a sincere
believer in the Christian revelation, and contributed largely and
efficiently to the defence of Christianity and the illustration of its
records. The chief merit of Paley's treatise on Moral Philosophy is that
it clearly and emphatically recognizes the Divine authority of the moral
teachings of the New Testament, though in expounding them the author too
frequently dilutes them by considerations of expediency.

*Jeremy Bentham* (A. D. 1747-1832) is Paley _minus_ Christianity. The
greatest good of the greatest number is, according to him, the aim and
criterion of virtue. Moral rules should be constructed with this sole end;
and this should be the pervading purpose of all legislation. Bentham's
works are very voluminous, and they cover, wisely and well, almost every
department of domestic, social, public, and national life. The worst that
can be said of his political writings is that they are in advance of the
age,--literally Utopian;(24) for it would be well with the country which
was prepared to embody his views. But, unfortunately, his principles have
no power of self-realization. They are like a watch, perfect in all other
parts, but without the mainspring. Bentham contemplates the individual man
as an agency, rather than as an intellectual and moral integer. He must
work under yoke and harness for ends vast and remote, beyond the
appreciation of ordinary mortals; and he must hold all partial affections
and nearer aims subordinate to rules deduced by sages and legisl