LOGIC OF PRACTICE OR ART. 



621 



determine the goodness or badness, 

 absolute and comparative, of ends 

 or objects of desire. And whatever 

 that standard is, there can be but 

 one : for if there were several ulti- 

 mate principles of conduct, the same 

 conduct might be approved by one of 

 those principles and condemned by 

 another ; and there would be needed 

 some more general principle as umpire 

 between them. 



Accordingly, writers on moral philo- 

 Bophy have mostly felt the necessity 

 not only of referring all rules of con- 

 duct, 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 ulti- 

 mate consequence they could all be 

 deduced. Those who have dispensed 

 with the assumption of such an uni- 

 versal standard have only been en- 

 abled to do so by supposing that a 

 moral sense, or instinct, inherent in 

 our constitution, informs us, both 

 what principles of conduct we are 

 bound to observe, and also in what 

 order these should be subordinated 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 in- 

 cidentally. I ghall content myself 

 therefore with saying, that the doc- 

 trine 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 cho.«en, 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 ad- 

 mits of, I merely declare my convic- 



tion, 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 conducive- 

 ness to the happiness of mankind, or 

 rather, of all sentient beings : in other 

 words, that the promotion of happi- 

 ness is the ultimate principle of Teleo- 

 lo^ry.* 



I do not mean to assert that the 

 promotion of happiness should be 

 itself the end of all actions, or even 

 of all rules of action. It is the justi- 

 fication, and ought to be the con- 

 troller, of all ends, but is not itself 

 the sole end. There are many virtu- 

 ous actions, and even virtuous modes 

 of action, (though the cases are, I 

 think, less frequent than is often 

 supposed,) by which happiness in the 

 particular instance is sacrificed, more 

 pain being produced than pleasure. 

 But conduct of which this can be 

 truly asserted admits of justification 

 only because it can be shown that on 

 the whole more happiness will exist 

 in the world if feelings are cultivated 

 which will make people, in certain 

 cases, regardless of happiness. I fully 

 admit that this is true : that the 

 cultivation of an ideal nobleness of 

 will and conduct should be to in- 

 dividual human beings an end, to 

 which the specific pursuit either of 

 their own happiness or of that of 

 others (except so far as included in 

 that idea) should, in any case of con- 

 flict, give way. But I hold that the 

 very question, what constitutes this 

 elevation of character, is itself to be 

 decided by a reference to happiness 

 as the standard. The character itself 

 should be, to the individual, a para- 

 mount end, simply because the exist- 

 ence of this ideal nobleness of char- 

 acter, or of a near approach to it, in 

 any abundance, would go further than 

 all things else towards making human 

 life happy, both in the comparatively 

 humble sense of p^easure and freedom 

 from pain, and in the higher meaning 



* Fnr an express discnssion nnd vindica- 

 tion of tills |.iiiiciple, ^ee the little voiuna© 

 euiitled Utiliiarianifni, 



