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of our modern social life? Is it not the general complaint that, with all our knowledge-all our science-all our command over the forces of nature-the tension and strain of our faculties is increasing? We are driven along in a hurrying crowd; we act under high pressure, and break up at an earlier age than our fathers. And all this in the pursuit of utility. Every one would gain the most he can, in the shortest possible time, in order to the largest measure of enjoyment.

So it is, and so it would be, though nothing were ever to come in to disturb this beau ideal of human life. But something is ever coming in, and rudely jarring on the "greatest happiness principle." Indeed, you would often think the opposite principle were the great inspiring stimulus of human activity, and that the end was-not to promote the greatest amount of happiness, but to produce the greatest amount of misery!

At doing what else are the utmost energies of the two sections of the "most advanced nation" of this most advanced of the ages, now put under extremest strain! No: even the people who have long pursued "utility," in the gross form of the "almighty dollar," are now waging deadly war on each other-in utter disregard of utility, in either its lower or its higher forms of expression,-in utter disregard both of profit and of happiness.

The testimony thus born to a higher principle of action, and a higher end in human life than utility, is as emphatic as it is decisive. And it has been witnessed to through all ages. Nor is the force of the testimony impaired by the fact, that never so much of human activity is due to a baser stimulus than that of even the lowest form of utility. The base is but the perversion of the noble-the base implies the noble; implies it in its very possibility, and by implying the noble vindicates for it its true place, even while usurping that place.

Utility the highest object of human activity! No, indeed, there is a principle of RIGHT, for which men have striven, suffered, and bled in all ages-a principle of WRONG which they have resisted to the death-and with a firmness and decision which calculation has never for a moment been permitted to mar or shake. They may have often been mistaken as to the matter of Right, as well as have often yielded to perverted motives in pursuing it. Right is none the less RIGHT for all that-none the less noble, but the more. That passion should pass itself off as principle is only the stronger testimony to the nobility of principle, and to the supremacy which is its rightful claim in the direction of our activity. That men should sometimes mistake passion for principle is only an illustration of the universally admitted fact, that we may not only deceive others, but are liable to self-deception as well.

The recognition of Right, apart from all calculation of consequences, implies a governing WILL-A SUPREME LIVING NATURE-to which Right conforms, and which Wrong traverses. But the principle of Utility implies no higher end in the Universe than enjoyment in the creature. Point

ing to nothing above man, it is essentially atheistic, and wholly destitute of elevating power. Even as regards this world it can never be a standard or criterion of action, because you can never formulate Happiness into an arithmetical equation. And to the present scene it must be confined. As it recognises nothing above man, it cannot take account of anything beyond his present life.

IV. UTILITARIANISM-PROVING TOO MUCH.

IT will not be difficult to apprehend that, whatever other elements of Christianity the Utilitarian theory may be strained to embrace, it canuot -or not in beyond a limited number of instances-be made to include that of self-sacrifice. Mr Mill evidently feels this difficulty acutely enough, and it is thus he endeavours-whether shall we say—to evade, or to overcome it? "The Utilitarian Morality does recognise in human beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the good of others. It only refuses to admit that the sacrifice is itself a good." Such is Mr Mill's defence of Utilitarianism on its obviously weak side, and it is a defence than which scarcely any assault could be more fatal. These two sentences embody two blunders, and it is difficult to say which is the greater; for both the affirmation and the denial alike betray Mr Mill's entire ignorance of the nature, the function, and the moral significance of self-sacrifice. "Utilitarianism," says Mr Mill, "does recognise in human beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the good of others." If Utilitarianism does so, we can only say that it is too beneficent by half, for it not only goes beyond Christianity, but recognises, what we have no hesitation in affirming to be, under a moral constitution, impossible. A system which required—or could admit of any one sacrificing his own greatest good" for the sake of others, would not only traverse our most distinctive notions of a moral system--but would uproot the very idea of a Moral Government. We need not either argue or illustrate this position; and, more especially, as the assumption is suicidal to Utilitarianism itself, for to speak of Utility would be the cruellest of mockeries, where one's highest good had to be sacrificed. That is a loss in the nature of the case, admitting of no compensation.

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Morality and Christianity have another voice, and one more in harmony with the deepest instincts and demands of our nature. A moral system has ever been understood to imply an administration securing ultimate justice to all. But Christianity advances much beyond this point. It is intended and adapted to secure to those who embrace it much that justice could not reach,-a higher order of blessing, and by transmuting ternpo

rary evil into enduring good. It inculcates self-sacrifice, and not as the exception, but as the rule for all its disciples; but so far from their foregoing their highest good in that, it is the indispensable process, through which alone they can realise it. On this the testimony of our Lord is distinct and emphatic. "He that saveth his life (the natural life of self and sensuous gratification) shall lose it, but he that lose th his life for my sake and the gospel's shall keep it unto life eternal." "No man hath forsaken father or mother, wife or children, houses or lands, for my sake, but shall receive in this life an hundred fold, and in the world to come life everlasting."

So that in saying that Utilitarianism denies self-sacrifice to be a good Mr Mill is--if possible-more unfortunate than in affirming that the system has room for the sacrifice of ones "greatest good." Christianity does require of us self-sacrifice for the good of others, but it is only the sacrifice of that "self" which it is ruin and death to our higher nature to indulge. It is this self-sacrifice which developes and nurtures in us a higher life, elevating us from the pursuit of mere gratification or pleasure to the capacity and the enjoyment of blessedness. So vast is the range of this requirement in the moral system-so deep does it reach, so high does it rise-that even the Son of God himself, the spotless Divine Man, was not beyond its scope,-" Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered." And so congruous is this process with the highest order of Divine IDEA, that it is pronounced to have been becoming in God to make Him "perfect through suffering."

Even though Mr Mill should protest--as very likely he would be ready to do that it is only "our greatest good" in this world which Utilitarianism allows or invites us to sacrifice, and that the system takes no account of anything beyond; even that limitation will only save the system thus far, that it provides for the greatest amount of good being enjoyed by the worst and meanest of mankind. Otherwise it would not be possible, even in this world, for the nobler order of natures to "sacrifice their greatest good."

We are quite aware that Mr Mill holds self-sacrifice to be only a temporary necessity; for the realisation of the requirements of Utilitarianism would introduce a secular Millennium, in which the "laws and social arrangements should place the interest of every individual as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole." Has Mr Mill inquired at all whether "laws and social arrangements" can ever effect a revolution so fundamental as this—whether it would not rather require a radical change in the constitution of the world and in that of human nature itself? And further, supposing it so completely effected as to make "duty and interest" always one, whether, in that case, there would be left any room for what has hitherto been known as morality among men; whether, in fact, there would be any scope for good in a world where there remained no temptation to evil.

No; Utilitarianism has its sphere, and morality its sphere; the sphere of morality being the higher, as its demands are imperative. The sphere of self-sacrifice or beneficence is higher still. We are to be guided by prudence, or the law of Utility, in things morally indifferent. It is a calculation of consequences. But where it is a question of right aud wrong--without inquiring as to consequences. Utility is superseded by a higher law. That law covers and subordinates all beneath it, for we have as little right to balance enjoyment, (our own or that of others) as profit, against duty. This is the first, and a necessary, step in the subordination of selfishness. The power of morality, however, may still be only that of restraint. Christianity introduces a deeper force. It does not merely bridle selfishness. It destroys it; and the power it employs is that of love. Just laws, and equitable social arrangements have their own, and that an important sphere, but they will all fail in the absence of this. This is the only power adequate to bring the desires of the individual into harmony with the general good. It will never be our object to seek the welfare of others as we do our own, till we "love our neighbour as ourselves." So, it is Christianity that can do that for us which Utilitarianism--affecting to array itself in its beneficent garments -only presents before us as an Utopian dream.

V.-UTILITARIANISM IN ITS ULTIMATE CLAIMS AND
DEVELOPMENT.

IN our second paper we laid it down as the fun lamental principle of an equable and all-embracing Civilization, that it must rest on THE DUE

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DEVELOPMENT AND EXERCISE OF ALL THE POWERS AND SUSCEPTIBILITIES

OF OUR NATURE." Utilitarianism glaringly violates this rule, by ignoring, not only the religious but the moral element; or by labouring to show that both may be advantageously dispensed with.

It is only consistent that Utilitarianism should deny to the religious and moral sentiments any original or underivative place in the human mind. "My own belief," says Mr Mill, "is that the moral feelings are not innate but acquired." The outcome of this doctrine is, as we shall see by and by, that as we may have a morality without a basis, so we may have a religion without a God! A morality, however, must rest somewhere, and it is at once amusing and instructive to see Mr Mill (unconsciously and helplessly) driven back on what it is the great object of his theory to disallow and subvert.

"The customary morality," says Mr M., "that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the

mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory." Of course the question of Utility does not intrude on those who "accept the customary morality as in itself obligatory." That acceptance forecloses all other questions. Here, by Mr Mill's own confession, the test of utility is not applied. Or if it is applied by any one, it is with this unfortunate result, (and which indeed accrues from every attempt to analyse our moral sentiments, where the principle of morality "is not already in men's minds," invested with a peculiar "sacre 'ness")-viz., "to divest them of a portion of their sanctity." Could we well have better proof that our moral feelings are not a compounded, but a simple, essential, original part of our nature?

If we want additional testimony to this-to the fact, and to the impossibility of building up a moral system without recognising it—Mr Mill shall himself supply it. If Utility be the test of virtue, it, certainly, should sanction all conduct which conforms to it. Yet, by Mr Mill's own confession, Utility, as a moral standard, must seek a sanction in something beyond itself. And where is he driven to recognise this sanction? In the "conscientious feelings of mankind." And he very naïvely adds :-" Undoubtedly this sanction has no binding efficacy on those who do not possess the feelings it appeals to." So it just comes to this-that the Utilitarian principle is nugatory within the sphere of the customary or conventional morality, and quite impotent beyond; and Mr Mill is driven to fall back on that old, familiar, but irreducible "Conscience," which, theoretically, it is his aim to discredit, and practically, to dispense with.

Mr Mill seems partly conscious of this weakness, and to save Utilitarianism, says, it fails, in such cases, only in common with every other system, those who will not obey the Utilitarian principle, "neither will they be obedient to any other." He forgets, however, that—even by his own showing-Utilitarianism must go beyond itself, both for the sense of moral obligation, and for any efficient motive to obedience, while other moral theories embrace both.

It has been a common conviction among men that virtue-in its essence, as well as in its highest manifestations-is disinterested. Moralists place virtue and interest in contrast, as they have often been found in violent conflict in Life and in History. According to the Utilitarian theory, however, Virtue and Interest are one; not, in the long run, or ultimately only, but, now, directly, all through. Yet Mr Mill assures us that in the Utilitarian scheme, virtue is not only desired, but "desired disinterestedly for itself." And thus it is he makes it out to be so. "Virtue, according to the Utilitarian doctrine, is not naturally and originally part of the end (happiness), but is capable of becoming so; and in those who love it disinterestedly it has become so, and is desired and cherished, not as a means to happiness, but as a part of their happiness.” In those who love virtue disinterestedly, it has become a part of their happiness. Do they then love it disinterestedly? Is it not their highest interest to cherish it? And what is the process through which this

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