BY
1879
CHAPTER IV. OF WHAT SORT OF PROOF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY IS
SUSCEPTIBLE
There are few circumstances among those which make up the present
condition of human knowledge, more unlike what might have been expected,
or more significant of the backward state in which speculation on the
most important subjects still lingers, than the little progress which
has been made in the decision of the controversy respecting the
criterion of right and wrong. From the dawn of philosophy, the question
concerning the _summum bonum_, or, what is the same thing, concerning
the foundation of morality, has been accounted the main problem in
speculative thought, has occupied the most gifted intellects, and
divided them into sects and schools, carrying on a vigorous warfare
against one another. And after more than two thousand years the same
discussions continue, philosophers are still ranged under the same
contending banners, and neither thinkers nor mankind at large seem
nearer to being unanimous on the subject, than when the youth Socrates
listened to the old Protagoras, and asserted (if Plato's dialogue be
grounded on a real conversation) the theory of utilitarianism against
the popular morality of the so-called sophist.
It is true that similar confusion and uncertainty, and in some cases
similar discordance, exist respecting the first principles of all the
sciences, not excepting that which is deemed the most certain of them,
mathematics; without much impairing, generally indeed without impairing
at all, the trustworthiness of the conclusions of those sciences. An
apparent anomaly, the explanation of which is, that the detailed
doctrines of a science are not usually deduced from, nor depend for
their evidence upon, what are called its first principles. Were it not
so, there would be no science more precarious, or whose conclusions were
more insufficiently made out, than algebra; which derives none of its
certainty from what are commonly taught to learners as its elements,
since these, as laid down by some of its most eminent teachers, are as
full of fictions as English law, and of mysteries as theology. The
truths which are ultimately accepted as the first principles of a
science, are really the last results of metaphysical analysis, practised
on the elementary notions with which the science is conversant; and
their relation to the science is not that of foundations to an edifice,
but of roots to a tree, which may perform their office equally well
though they be never dug down to and exposed to light. But though in
science the particular truths precede the general theory, the contrary
might be expected to be the case with a practical art, such as morals or
legislation. All action is for the sake of some end, and rules of
action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character
and colour from the end to which they are subservient. When we engage in
a pursuit, a clear and precise conception of what we are pursuing would
seem to be the first thing we need, instead of the last we are to look
forward to. A test of right and wrong must be the means, one would
think, of ascertaining what is right or wrong, and not a consequence of
having already ascertained it.