take,
ignore, or lose sight of, when they act wrongly.

There are, in the main, three answers to this question, though they are
rather different modes, I conceive, of presenting the same idea, than
distinct and independent explanations. It may be said that we look to
the manner in which the action will affect the happiness or pleasure of
those whom it concerns, or their welfare or well-being, or the
development or perfection of their character. Now it seems to me that
these are by no means necessarily antagonistic modes of speaking, and
that, in attempting to determine the test of right action, they are all
useful as complementing each other. There is, however, a view of the
measure of actions which, though derived from external considerations,
is opposed to them all, and which it may be desirable to notice at once,
with the object of eliminating it from our enquiry. It is that we are
only concerned with actions so far as they affect ourselves, and that,
providing we observe the law of the land, which will punish us if we do
not observe it, we are under no further obligations to our
fellow-citizens. This paradox, for such it is, has mainly acquired
notoriety though the advocacy of Hobbes, though it has sometimes been
ignorantly attributed to Bentham and other writers of what is called the
utilitarian school. But, be this as it may, it is so plainly
inconsistent with some of the most obvious facts of human nature, and
specially with the existence of that large and essential group of
emotions which we call the sympathetic feelings, as well as with the
constitution of family, social, and civic life, that it is unnecessary
here further to discuss it. The views now generally accepted as to the
origin of society in the family or tribal relations are alike
irreconcileable with the selfish psychology from which Hobbes educes his
system of morality and with that 'state of nature in which every man was
at war with every man' from which he traces the growth of law and
government. Reverting, therefore, to those tests of conduct which
recognise, the independent existence of social as well as self-regarding
springs of action, I shall now make some remarks on the appropriateness
and adequacy, for the purpose of designating such tests, of the three
classes of terms, noticed above. To begin with happiness or pleasure.
Taking happiness to mean the balance of pleasures over pains, and
degrees of happiness the proportions of this balance,