would clearly be doing not right but wrong. And yet,
as clearly, their wrong-doing would have conduced to the greater
happiness of the greater number, inasmuch as, while only one life could
otherwise have been saved, it would save two, and inasmuch as,
_coeteris paribus_, two persons would necessarily derive twice as much
enjoyment from continued existence as one would. Moreover, their
wrong-doing would be of a kind calculated always to produce similarly
useful results. It cannot, I suppose, be denied that a rule to the
effect that whenever forfeiture of one life would save two, one life
should be sacrificed, would--not exceptionally only, but at large and in
the long run--conduce to the saving of life, and therefore to the
conservation of happiness connected with life.

The foregoing cases are no doubt both of them extreme, involving
exaction of the largest possible private sacrifice for the general good;
but in all cases of the kind, whether the exaction be small or great,
the same governing principle equally applies. If you, a foot-sore,
homeward-bound pedestrian, on a sweltering July day, were to see your
next-door neighbour driving in the same direction in solitary state,
would you have a right to stop his carriage and force yourself in? Nay,
even though you had just before fallen down and broken your leg, would
the compassionating by-standers be justified in forcing him to take you
in? Or, again, if you were outside a coach during a pelting shower, and
saw a fellow-passenger with a spare umbrella between his legs, while an
unprotected female close beside was being drenched with the rain, would
you have a right to wrest the second umbrella from him, and hold it over
her? That, very likely, is what you would do in the circumstances, and
few would be disposed greatly to blame the indignant ebullition. Still,
unless you are a disciple of Proudhon, you will scarcely pretend that
you can have a right to take possession of another's carriage or
umbrella against the owner's will. You can scarcely suppose that it is
not for him but for you to decide what use shall be made of articles
belonging not to you but to him. Yet there can be no doubt that the
happiness of society would be vastly promoted if everyone felt himself
under an irresistible obligation to assist his neighbour whenever he
could do so with little or no inconvenience to himself, or,
consequently, if external force were always at hand to constrain anyone
so t