e test of right and
wrong, use the term in that restricted and merely colloquial sense in
which utility is opposed to pleasure. An apology is due to the
philosophical opponents of utilitarianism, for even the momentary
appearance of confounding them with any one capable of so absurd a
misconception; which is the more extraordinary, inasmuch as the contrary
accusation, of referring everything to pleasure, and that too in its
grossest form, is another of the common charges against utilitarianism:
and, as has been pointedly remarked by an able writer, the same sort of
persons, and often the very same persons, denounce the theory "as
impracticably dry when the word utility precedes the word pleasure, and
as too practicably voluptuous when the word pleasure precedes the word
utility." Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every
writer, from Epicurus to Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility,
meant by it, not something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but
pleasure itself, together with exemption from pain; and instead of
opposing the useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have always
declared that the useful means these, among other things. Yet the
common herd, including the herd of writers, not only in newspapers and
periodicals, but in books of weight and pretension, are perpetually
falling into this shallow mistake. Having caught up the word
utilitarian, while knowing nothing whatever about it but its sound, they
habitually express by it the rejection, or the neglect, of pleasure in
some of its forms; of beauty, of ornament, or of amusement. Nor is the
term thus ignorantly misapplied solely in disparagement, but
occasionally in compliment; as though it implied superiority to
frivolity and the mere pleasures of the moment. And this perverted use
is the only one in which the word is popularly known, and the one from
which the new generation are acquiring their sole notion of its meaning.
Those who introduced the word, but who had for many years discontinued
it as a distinctive appellation, may well feel themselves called upon to
resume it, if by doing so they can hope to contribute anything towards
rescuing it from this utter degradation.[A]

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the
Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion
as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the
reverse of happiness. By happiness is i