harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures.
If differences of opinion and of mental culture make it impossible for
him to share many of their actual feelings-perhaps make him denounce and
defy those feelings-he still needs to be conscious that his real aim and
theirs do not conflict; that he is not opposing himself to what they
really wish for, namely, their own good, but is, on the contrary,
promoting it. This feeling in most individuals is much inferior in
strength to their selfish feelings, and is often wanting altogether. But
to those who have it, it possesses all the characters of a natural
feeling. It does not present itself to their minds as a superstition of
education, or a law despotically imposed by the power of society, but as
an attribute which it would not be well for them to be without. This
conviction is the ultimate sanction of the greatest-happiness morality.
This it is which makes any mind, of well-developed feelings, work with,
and not against, the outward motives to care for others, afforded by
what I have called the external sanctions; and when those sanctions are
wanting, or act in an opposite direction, constitutes in itself a
powerful internal binding force, in proportion to the sensitiveness and
thoughtfulness of the character; since few but those whose mind is a
moral blank, could bear to lay out their course of life on the plan of
paying no regard to others except so far as their own private interest
compels.




CHAPTER IV.


OF WHAT SORT OF PROOF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY IS SUSCEPTIBLE.