III. A third objection is that men in all ages have distinguished between the right and the expedient, that is, the useful; the two are in most languages put in opposition or contrast. The reply is that the expedient, when thus opposed to the right, commonly means what is expedient for the agent at the time, but is not expedient for people gen erally, or even for himself in the long run. It is sometimes expedient, in this sense, to tell a lie, to rob, or to murder; but such actions are not expedient in the sense of general utility, or the greatest happiness of mankind.
It is further to be remarked in this contrast of the expedient and the right, that the expedient may mean simply an addition to our conveniences or comforts, something that it is well for us to have, but that we might do without. Thus it is highly expedient. to possess cheap postage, railways, and electric telegraphs. On the other hand, the right points to the essentials of our existence; without the fulfillment of contracts, respect to life and property, obedience to law, society would be dissolved. The distinction was expressed in one of Cromwell's speeches, by the contrast of a nation's being and its being; what secures the one is emphatically the right, the promotion of the other is the i expedient. Right is the highest and most imperative form of expediency.
IV. A fourth objection against the utilitarian scheme is that all useful things are not made obligatory; it may be useful to have railways, but it is not a duty of every man to make them. But the utilitarian, while contending that nothing should be made a moral duty but what contributes to the happiness of mankind, does not hold the converse, that whatever promotes human welfare is a moral duty.
So much for the objections. The positive ground of utilitarianism is that men actually recognize happiness as their paramount consideration, or highest end. This, as a general rule, is too obvious to require proof. Each one's plan of life is principally made up of ideas of happiness to self or to others. All our good wishes to one another are repetitions of the one idea, "May you be happy." The seeming exceptions have been noticed above.
One of the strongest confirmations of the doctrine is derived from the usual induce ments to right conduct. common to all moralists. We find that no one can preach moral ity without making use of its bearings upon happiness. The very meaning of the terms expressive of the highest virtues—love, goodness, mercy, compassion, fidelity, honesty, integrity, justice—is something that relieves the pains and augnients the pleasures of sentient beings. To to make the object happier, and love is the fulfilling of the law.
Although there be duties occasionally imposed upon men that have no obvious ten dency to increase happiness, but rather to diminish it, as the labors of some cumbrous ceremonial system like Hinduism, those duties have to be upheld by the fear of punish ment or the hope of reward, still testifying to the predominating motives of the human mind. It is not, however, by reference to traditional observances that the happiness motive is most clearly tested. The proper plan, as remarked by Mr, Samuel Bailey, is to try it upon some fresh case, some entirely new enactment, when it will be found that i the interest or happiness of the community is the sole consideration appealed to. If a new law of inheritance is proposed, or a new government board constituted, nobody advances any other criterion but expediency, or the good of certain persons now or in the future; unless such expediency can be shown, no one will move in the matter at all; and the earnestness of the promoters will be in exact proportion to their sense of the resulting good. We may, through blind conservation, keep up usages not only destitute of utility, but productive of harm; but we should not now deliberately set up for the first time any practice that we did not regard as conducive to somebody's well-being. Traditional associations excepted, the strength of our approbation or disapprobation_ always follows our estimate of happiness or misery produced.
It is worthy of remark that utility, or the promotion of human welfare, as it is the very meaning of the work of a public benefactor, expresses the sum of the labors of all the best men that have ever lived.