hus far omits to
exercise the reason which distinguishes him from the brutes.

There can be no doubt that *expediency and right coincide*. Under the
government of Supreme Benevolence, it is impossible that what ought to be
done should not conduce to the welfare of him who does it. But its
beneficent results may be too remote for him to trace them, nay, may
belong to a life beyond death, to which human cognizance does not reach;
while what ought not to be done may promise substantial benefit so far as
man's foresight extends. Then, too, it is at least supposable that there
may be cases, in which, were they solitary cases, expediency might diverge
from right, yet in which, because they belong to a class, it is for the
interest of society and of every individual member of society that general
laws should be obeyed. It is obvious also, that there are many cases, in
which the calculation of expediency involves details too numerous and too
complicated to be fully understood by a mind of ordinary discernment,
while the same mind can clearly perceive what course of conduct is in
accordance with the strict rule of right. Still farther, in a question of
conduct in which appetite, desire, or affection is concerned, we cannot
take as calm and dispassionate a view of our true interest, as we should
of the interest of another person in like case. The impelling force may be
so strong, that for the time being we sincerely regard it as
expedient--though we know that it is not right--to yield to it.

For these reasons there is an *apparent conflict between the useful and
the right*. Though a perfectly wise and dispassionate man might give
precisely the same answer in every instance to the question of interest
and that of duty, men, limited and influenced as they are, can hardly fail
in many instances to answer these questions differently. The man who makes
his own imagined good his ruling aim does many things which he would not
defend on the ground of right; the man who determines always to do right
sometimes performs acts of reputed and conscious self-denial and
self-sacrifice.

Nor yet can more *general* considerations of *expediency*, reference to
the good of others, to the greatest good of the greatest number, serve as
a guide to the right or a test of the right. We have less foresight as
regards others than as regards ourselves; the details involved in the true
interest of any community, society, or number of persons, are necessari