doctrine. If it be necessary to say anything at all against so mere an
assumption, we may say that the question depends upon what idea we have
formed of the moral character of the Deity. If it be a true belief that
God desires, above all things, the happiness of his creatures, and that
this was his purpose in their creation, utility is not only not a
godless doctrine, but more profoundly religious than any other. If it be
meant that utilitarianism does not recognise the revealed will of God as
the supreme law of morals, I answer, that an utilitarian who believes in
the perfect goodness and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that
whatever God has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals, must
fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree. But others
besides utilitarians have been of opinion that the Christian revelation
was intended, and is fitted, to inform the hearts and minds of mankind
with a spirit which should enable them to find for themselves what is
right, and incline them to do it when found, rather than to tell them,
except in a very general way, what it is: and that we need a doctrine of
ethics, carefully followed out, to _interpret_ to us the will of God.
Whether this opinion is correct or not, it is superfluous here to
discuss; since whatever aid religion, either natural or revealed, can
afford to ethical investigation, is as open to the utilitarian moralist
as to any other. He can use it as the testimony of God to the usefulness
or hurtfulness of any given course of action, by as good a right as
others can use it for the indication of a transcendental law, having no
connexion with usefulness or with happiness.

Again, Utility is often summarily stigmatized as an immoral doctrine by
giving it the name of Expediency, and taking advantage of the popular
use of that term to contrast it with Principle. But the Expedient, in
the sense in which it is opposed to the Right, generally means that
which is expedient for the particular interest of the agent himself: as