30 PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



operated by no force more powerful than that of philosophical 

 theories, — 



" Aliudque cupido 

 Mens alia suadet. Video meliora, proboqae 

 Deteriora sequor." 



In truth, the world is just where it was before, the desiderate 

 is not the knowledge of the great truth, than an uniform course 

 of virtuous conduct is, "in the long run,'' as the Utilitarian 

 affirms, the surest, as well as the most direct road to happiness : 

 but the means of appb/ing that knowledge, of bringing it into 

 daily practice, is the difficulty. Philosophers, legislators, moral- 

 ists, philantrophists, and divines, have been for ages struggling 

 with this ever recurring obstacle. Naturam expellas furca. It 

 was not reserved for Hume, or Helvetius, or Hartley, or Priestley, 

 or Bentham, to discover that the ways of piety and virtue, will, 

 in the end, prove to be the paths of the only real pleasure. It 

 was upon this truth, that even Epicurus based his system, (per- 

 verted, as it afterwards undoubtedly was) according to the testi- 

 mony of Cicero, " Non posse jucunde vivi, nisi sapienter, honeste, 

 justeque vivater; nee sapienter honeste, juste, nisi jucunde." 



The lecturer thus concluded the first part of his lecture, which 

 he confined to philosophical Utilitarianism. " The greatest hap- 

 piness principle, so much vaunted, is, in reality, nothing more 

 than the sum mum bonum of the ancients, under a somewhat 

 mystified title; and the system of Utilitarianism, in so far as it 

 is practically valuable, has been for ages the theme and praise of 

 moralists and philosophers. But beyond this, I am at a loss to 

 discover a single claim to public estimation or regard. The 

 grand difficulty remains untouched. The Gordian knot is still 

 untied, for while it conceitedly pretends to take from religion 

 its legitimate and proper office of enforcing moral duties, it 

 utterly fails to supply any substitute in its stead, which the ex- 

 perience of ages has not over and over again proved to be inap- 

 plicable, futile, and delusive. It would throw Society back from 

 the sunny vantage ground to which Christianity has raised upon 

 the wild, cold, and mazy flats of ancient philosophy." 



** Defend me therefore, common sense, say I, 

 From reveries so airy, from tiie toil 

 Of dropping buckets into empty wells 

 And growing old, in drawing nothing up." 



COWPER. 



The second part treated of the opinions which the lecturer 

 designated as those of vulgar Utilitarianism, of the school whose 



