s on their conformity to
moral rules. Whence, if so much be admitted, it necessarily follows that
the test of the morality of actions is their conduciveness to enjoyment.

But the enjoyment thus referred to is not that of the agent alone, for
if it were, no action whatever could possibly be immoral. Whatever any
one does, he does either because to do it gives him or promises him
pleasure, or because he believes that the not doing it would subject him
to more pain than he will suffer from doing it. Besides, one person's
enjoyment may be obtained at the expense of other people's suffering, so
that an act in which the actor takes pleasure may destroy or prevent
more pleasure altogether than it creates. The enjoyment or happiness,
therefore, which Utilitarianism regards, is not individual, but general
happiness; not that of one or of a few, but of the many, nor even of the
many only. It is often declared to be the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, but it may with more accuracy be described as the
largest aggregate of happiness attainable by any or by all
concerned.[1] Again, an action which, in some particular instance,
causes more pleasure than pain to those affected by it, may yet belong
to a class of actions which, in the generality of cases, causes more
pain than pleasure, and may thus involve a violation of a moral rule,
and, consequently, be itself immoral. Wherefore the enjoyment which
Utilitarianism adopts as its moral test is not simply the greatest sum
of enjoyment for all concerned, but that greatest sum in the greatest
number of cases. In its widest signification it is the greatest
happiness of society at large and in the long run. From these premises a
decisive criterion of right and wrong may be deduced. Every action
belonging to a class calculated to promote the permanent happiness of
society is right. Every action belonging to a class opposed to the
permanent happiness of society is wrong.

In the foregoing exposition I have, I trust, evinced a sincere desire to
give Utilitarianism its full due, and I shall at least be admitted to
have shown myself entirely free from most of those more vulgar
misconceptions of its nature which have given its professors such just
offence. Many of its assailants have not scrupled to stigmatise as
worthy only of swine a doctrine which represents life as having no
better and nobler object of desire and pursuit than pleasure. To these,
however, it has, by the great apos