the least possible effect in weakening reliance on veracity, it ought to
be recognized, and, if possible, its limits defined; and if the
principle of utility is good for anything, it must be good for weighing
these conflicting utilities against one another, and marking out the
region within which one or the other preponderates.

Again, defenders of utility often find themselves called upon to reply
to such objections as this--that there is not time, previous to action,
for calculating and weighing the effects of any line of conduct on the
general happiness. This is exactly as if any one were to say that it is
impossible to guide our conduct by Christianity, because there is not
time, on every occasion on which anything has to be done, to read
through the Old and New Testaments. The answer to the objection is, that
there has been ample time, namely, the whole past duration of the human
species. During all that time mankind have been learning by experience
the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well
as all the morality of life, is dependent. People talk as if the
commencement of this course of experience had hitherto been put off, and
as if, at the moment when some man feels tempted to meddle with the
property or life of another, he had to begin considering for the first
time whether murder and theft are injurious to human happiness. Even
then I do not think that he would find the question very puzzling; but,
at all events, the matter is now done to his hand. It is truly a
whimsical supposition, that if mankind were agreed in considering
utility to be the test of morality, they would remain without any
agreement as to what is useful, and would take no measures for having
their notions on the subject taught to the young, and enforced by law
and opinion. There is no difficulty in proving any ethical standard
whatever to work ill, if we suppose universal idiocy to be conjoined
with it, but on any hypothesis short of that, mankind must by this time