LOGIC OF PRACTICE OR ART. 



553 



one of those principles and condemned by another ; and there 

 would be needed some more general principle, as umpire be 

 tween them. 



Accordingly, writers on moral philosophy have mostly felt 

 the necessity not only of referring all rules of conduct, and all 

 judgments of praise and blame, to principles, but of referring 

 them to some one principle; some rule, or standard, with which 

 all other rules of conduct were required to be consistent, and 

 from which by ultimate consequence they could all be deduced. 

 Those who have dispensed with the assumption of such an 

 universal standard, have only been enabled to do so by sup 

 posing that a moral sense, or instinct, inherent in our consti 

 tution, informs us, both what principles of conduct we are 

 bound to observe, and also in what order these should be sub 

 ordinated to one another. 



The theory of the foundations of morality is a subject 

 which it would be out of place, in a work like this, to discuss 

 at large, and which could not to any useful purpose be treated 

 incidentally. I shall content myself therefore with saying, 

 that the doctrine of intuitive moral principles, even if true, 

 would provide only for that portion of the field of conduct 

 which is properly called moral. For the remainder of the 

 practice of life some general principle, or standard, must still 

 be sought ; and if that principle be rightly chosen, it will be 

 found, I apprehend, to serve quite as well for the ultimate 

 principle of Morality, as for that of Prudence, Policy, or 

 Taste. 



Without attempting in this place to justify my opinion, or 

 even to define the kind of justification which it admits of, I 

 merely declare my conviction, that the general principle to 

 which all rules of practice ought to conform, and the test by 

 which they should be tried, is that of conduciveness to the 

 happiness of mankind, or rather, of all sentient beings : in 

 other words, that the promotion of happiness is the ultimate 

 principle of Teleology.* 



* For an express discussion and vindication of this principle, see the little 

 volume entitled &quot;Utilitarianism.&quot; 



