e ground of moral
obligation, yet he must not do what clearly conduces to his own
happiness if it is at variance with the good of the whole. Nay, further,
he will be taught that when utility and right are in apparent conflict
any amount of utility does not alter by a hair's-breadth the morality
of actions, which cannot be allowed to deviate from established law or
usage; and that the non-detection of an immoral act, say of telling a
lie, which may often make the greatest difference in the consequences,
not only to himself, but to all the world, makes none whatever in the
act itself.

Again, if we are concerned not with particular actions but with classes
of actions, is the tendency of actions to happiness a principle upon
which we can classify them? There is a universal law which imperatively
declares certain acts to be right or wrong:--can there be any
universality in the law which measures actions by their tendencies
towards happiness? For an act which is the cause of happiness to one
person may be the cause of unhappiness to another; or an act which if
performed by one person may increase the happiness of mankind may have
the opposite effect if performed by another. Right can never be wrong,
or wrong right, that there are no actions which tend to the happiness
of mankind which may not under other circumstances tend to their
unhappiness. Unless we say not only that all right actions tend to
happiness, but that they tend to happiness in the same degree in which
they are right (and in that case the word 'right' is plainer), we weaken
the absoluteness of our moral standard; we reduce differences in kind
to differences in degree; we obliterate the stamp which the authority of
ages has set upon vice and crime.

Once more: turning from theory to practice we feel the importance of
retaining the received distinctions of morality. Words such as truth,
justice, honesty, virtue, love, have a simple meaning; they have become
sacred to us,--'the word of God' written on the human heart: to no other
words can the same associations be attached. We cannot explain them
adequately on principles of utility; in attempting to do so we rob them
of their true character. We give them a meaning often paradoxical and
distorted, and generally weaker than their signification in common
language. And as words influence men's thoughts, we fear that the hold
of morality may also be weakened, and the sense of duty impaired, if
virtue and vice are ex