REPRINTED FROM 'FRASER'S MAGAZINE'
SEVENTH EDITION
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1879
CHAPTER II. WHAT UTILITARIANISM IS
CHAPTER III. OF THE ULTIMATE SANCTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
CHAPTER IV. OF WHAT SORT OF PROOF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY IS SUSCEPTIBLE
CHAPTER V. OF THE CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTICE AND UTILITY
There are few circumstances among those which make up the presentcondition of human knowledge, more unlike what might have been expected,or more significant of the backward state in which speculation on themost important subjects still lingers, than the little progress whichhas been made in the decision of the controversy respecting thecriterion of right and wrong. From the dawn of philosophy, the questionconcerning the summum bonum, or, what is the same thing, concerningthe foundation of morality, has been accounted the main problem inspeculative thought, has occupied the most gifted intellects, anddivided them into sects and schools, carrying on a vigorous warfareagainst one another. And after more than two thousand years the samediscussions continue, philosophers are still ranged under the samecontending banners, and neither thinkers nor mankind at large seemnearer to being unanimous on the subject, than when the youth Socrateslistened to the old Protagoras, and asserted (if Plato's dialogue begrounded on a real conversation) the theory of utilitarianism againstthe popular morality of the so-called sophist.
It is true that similar confusion and uncertainty, and in some casessimilar discordance, exist respecting the first principles of all thesciences, not excepting that which is deemed the most certain of them,mathematics; without much impairing, generally indeed without impairingat all, the trustworthiness of the conclusions of those sciences. Anapparent anomaly, the explanation of which is, that the detaileddoctrines of a science are not usually deduced from, nor depend fortheir evidence upon, what are called its first principles. Were it notso, there would be no science more precarious, or whose conclusions weremore insufficiently made out, than algebra; which derives none of itscertainty from what are commonly taught to learners as its elements,since these, as laid down by some of its most eminent teachers, are asfull of fictions as English law, and of mysteries as theology. Thetruths which are ultimately accepted as the first principles of ascience, are really the last results of metaphysical analysis, practisedon the elementary notions with which the science is conversant; andtheir relation to the science is not that of foundations to an edifice,but of roots to a tree, which may perform their office equally wellthough they be never dug down to and exposed to light. But though inscience the particular truths precede the general theory, the contrarymight be expected to be the case with a practical art, such as morals orlegislat