sacrifice not tending to
increase the sum of happiness is to be held as wasted. The golden rule,
do as you would be done by, is the ideal perfection of utilitarian
morality. The means of approaching this ideal are, first, that laws and
society should endeavour to place the interest of the individual in
harmony with the interest of the whole; and, secondly, that education
and opinion should establish in the mind of each individual an
indissoluble association between his own good and the good of the
whole.

The system of Utility is objected to, on another side, as being too
high for humanity; men cannot be perpetually acting with a view to the
general interests of society. But this is to mistake the meaning of a
standard, and to confound the rule of action with the motive. Ethics
tells us what are our duties, or by what test we are to know them; but
no system of ethics requires that the motive of every action should be
a feeling of duty; our actions are rightly done provided only duty does
not condemn them. The great majority of actions have nothing to do with
the good of the world--they end with the individual; it happens to few
persons, and that rarely, to be public benefactors. Private utility is
in the mass of cases all that we have to attend to. As regards
abstinences, indeed, it would be unworthy of an intelligent agent not
to be aware that the action is one that, if practised generally, would
be generally injurious, and to not feel a sense of obligation on that
ground; but such an amount of regard for the general interest is
required under every system of morals.

It is farther alleged against Utility, that it renders men cold and
unsympathizing, chills the moral feelings towards individuals, and
regards only the dry consequences of actions, without reference to the
moral qualities of the agent. The author replies that Utility, like any
other system, admits that a right action does not necessarily indicate
a virtuous character. Still, he contends, in the long run, the best
proof of a good character is good actions. If the objection means that
utilitarians do not lay sufficient stress on the beauties of character,
he replies that this is the accident of persons cultivating their moral
feelings more than their sympathies and artistic perceptions, and may
occur under every view of the foundation of morals.

The next objection considered is that Utility is a _godless_ doctrine.
The answer is, that whoever believes