itous assumption of
theirs as a self-evident truth.

For, as Utilitarians themselves cannot fail on reflection to perceive,
they offer no shadow of argument in support of that 'greatest happiness
principle' on which their whole system rests. Commencing with the
undeniable postulate that happiness is the sole object of existence, and
perceiving that individual happiness alone would be a very misleading
object, they proceed to take quietly for granted that the only happiness
at which life ought to aim is social happiness. Now, undoubtedly social
happiness is of more importance than individual happiness--the happiness
of many than that of one or a few; neither can there be any worthier
object of pursuit than the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
All this is seen without being said, but what is by no means so easily
seen is how it can be incumbent on any one to pursue that object to his
own detriment--how it can be imperative on one or on a few to sacrifice
his or their happiness in order to promote that of the many. Plainly
such self-devotion cannot be for their personal advantage, and
Utilitarianism does not even attempt to show how it can have become
their duty. Meritorious, magnanimous, heroic in the highest degree it
would certainly be, but does not that very circumstance prove
conclusively that it cannot be due, inasmuch as there is nothing
meritorious in merely doing one's duty and paying one's debts? But of
that which is not due, how can payment be rightfully insisted upon? What
the few are under no obligation to yield, how can the many be entitled
to extort, or how can the worthiness of the latter's object excuse their
doing that which they have no right to do? Is any object, however
worthy, to be pursued regardless of all collateral considerations? To
these objections Utilitarians have no answer to make. All they can do is
tacitly to take for granted the disputed duty and right. That the less
ought to give way to the greater, and the few to the many, and that the
many may rightfully therefore, if need be, use force to compel the less
or the few to give way--these are treated by them as incontestable
propositions, even as 'doctrines _a priori_, claiming assent by their
own light, evident by simple intuition.' And although thus from their
own inner consciousness evolving the very first principles of their own
philosophy, the premises of their deduction that social happiness is the
proper aim in life, and th