208 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



what they are we cannot learn, nor what the principles of 

 his government, except that ' the highest human morality 

 which we are capable of conceiving ' does not sanction them ; 

 convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But 

 when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same 

 time call this being by the names which express and affirm 

 the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will 

 not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, 

 there is one thing which he shall not do : he shall not com- 

 pel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is 

 not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow- 

 creatures ; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for 

 not so calling him, to hell I will go." 



This is unquestionably an admirable sentiment on the 

 part of Mr. Mill (with which every absolute moralist will 

 agree), but it contains a complete refutation of his own po- 

 sition, and is a capital instance 8 of the vigorous life of 

 moral intuition in one who professes to have eliminated any 

 fundamental distinction between the " right " and the " ex- 

 pedient." For if an action is morally good, and to be done, 

 merely in proportion to the amount of pleasure it secures, 

 and morally bad and to be avoided as tending to misery, 

 and if it could be proved that by calling God good 

 whether He is so or not, in our sense of the term we could 

 secure a maximum of pleasure, and by refusing to do so we 

 should incur endless torment, clearly, on utilitarian princi- 

 ples, the flattery would be good. 



Mr. Mill, of course, must also mean that, in the matter 

 in question, all men would do well to act with him. There- 

 fore, he must mean that it would be well for all to accept 

 (on the hypothesis above given) infinite and final misery 

 for all as the result of the pursuit of happiness as the only 

 end. 



8 I have not the merit of having noticed this inconsistency ; it was 

 pointed out to me by my friend the Kev. W. W. Roberts. 



