in the perfect goodness and wisdom
of God, necessarily believes that whatever he has thought fit to reveal
on the subject of morals must fulfil the requirements of utility in a
supreme degree.

Again, Utility is stigmatized as an immoral doctrine, by carrying out
Expediency in opposition to Principle. But the Expedient in this sense
means what is expedient for the agent himself, and, instead of being
the same thing with the useful, is a branch of the hurtful. It would
often be expedient to tell a lie, but so momentous and so widely
extended are the utilities of truth, that veracity is a rule of
transcendent expediency. Yet all moralists admit exceptions to it,
solely on account of the manifest inexpediency of observing it on
certain occasions.

The author does not omit to notice the usual charge that it is
impossible to make a calculation of consequences previous to every
action, which is as much as to say that no one can be under the
guidance of Christianity, because there is not time, on the occasion of
doing anything, to read through the Old and New Testaments. The real
answer is (substantially the same as Austin's) that there has been
ample time during the past duration of the species. Mankind have all
that time been learning by experience the consequences of actions; on
that experience they have founded both their prudence and their
morality. It is an inference from the principle of utility, which
regards morals as a practical art, that moral rules are improvable; but
there exists under the ultimate principle a number of intermediate
generalizations, applicable at once to the emergencies of human
conduct. Nobody argues that navigation is not founded on astronomy,
because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack.

As to the stock argument, that people will pervert utility for their
private ends, Mr. Mill challenges the production of any ethical creed
where this may not happen. The fault is due, not to the origin of the
rules, but to the complicated nature of human affairs, and the
necessity of allowing a certain latitude, under the moral
responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to circumstances. And in
cases of conflict, utility is a better guide than anything found in
systems whose moral laws claim independent authority.

Chapter III. considers the ULTIMATE SANCTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF
UTILITY.

It is a proper question with regard to a supposed moral standard,--What
is its sanction? what