mind than any other cause, perhaps than all other causes
taken together.'[588] Sir James blundered because he had not read
Mill's book, as he pretended to have done. Mill does not say all this
from vanity; he is simply stating an obvious matter of fact.

Mill's polemic against the Moral Sense theory, even against a moral
sense produced by association, reveals the really critical points of
the true Utilitarian doctrine. Mill would cut down the moral sense
root and branch. The 'moral sense' means a 'particular faculty'
necessary to discern right and wrong. But no particular faculty is
necessary to discern 'utility.'[589] Hence the distinction between the
'criterion' and the 'moral sentiments' is absurd. The utility is not
the 'criterion' of the morality but itself constitutes the morality.
To say that conduct is right, according to the Utilitarians, is the
same thing as to say that it produces happiness. If the moral sense
orders conduct opposed to the criterion, it is so far bad. If it
never orders such conduct, it is superfluous. Happiness, as with
Bentham, is a definite thing--a currency of solid bullion; and
'virtue' means nothing except as calculated in this currency. Mill,
again, like Bentham, regards the 'utility' principle as giving the
sole 'objective' test. The complaint that it sanctions 'expediency' is
a simple fallacy.

If you do not love virtue 'for its own sake,' said Mackintosh, you
will break a general law wherever the law produces a balance of
painful consequences. Mill replies with great vigour.[590] All general
rules, it is true, imply exceptions, but only when they conflict with
the supreme rule. 'There is no exception to a rule of morality,' says
Mill, 'but what is made by a rule of morality.'[591] There are
numerous cases in which the particular laws conflict; and one law must
then be broken. The question which to break must then be decided by
the same unequivocal test, 'utility.' If a rule for increasing utility
diminishes utility in a given case, it must be broken in that case.
Mackintosh's Fletcher of Saltoun illustrates the point.[592] What is
the 'base' thing which Fletcher would not do to save his country?
Would he not be the basest of men if he did not save his country at
any cost? To destroy half a population and reduce the other half to
misery has been thought a sacrifice not too great for such an end.
Would not Mackintosh himself allow Fletcher, when intrusted with an
important fortress