or affection for them or of love and awe of Him, inclining us to do His
will independently of selfish consequences. There is evidently no
reason why all these motives for observance should not attach themselves
to the utilitarian morality, as completely and as powerfully as to any
other. Indeed, those of them which refer to our fellow creatures are
sure to do so, in proportion to the amount of general intelligence; for
whether there be any other ground of moral obligation than the general
happiness or not, men do desire happiness; and however imperfect may be
their own practice, they desire and commend all conduct in others
towards themselves, by which they think their happiness is promoted.
With regard to the religious motive, if men believe, as most profess to
do, in the goodness of God, those who think that conduciveness to the
general happiness is the essence, or even only the criterion, of good,
must necessarily believe that it is also that which God approves. The
whole force therefore of external reward and punishment, whether
physical or moral, and whether proceeding from God or from our fellow
men, together with all that the capacities of human nature admit, of
disinterested devotion to either, become available to enforce the
utilitarian morality, in proportion as that morality is recognized; and
the more powerfully, the more the appliances of education and general
cultivation are bent to the purpose.

So far as to external sanctions. The internal sanction of duty, whatever
our standard of duty may be, is one and the same--a feeling in our own
mind; a pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty,
which in properly cultivated moral natures rises, in the more serious
cases, into shrinking from it as an impossibility. This feeling, when
disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty, and
not with some particular form of it, or with any of the merely accessory
circumstances, is the essence of Conscience; though in that complex