It has already been remarked, that questions of ultimate ends do not
admit of proof, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. To be incapable
of proof by reasoning is common to all first principles; to the first
premises of our knowledge, as well as to those of our conduct. But the
former, being matters of fact, may be the subject of a direct appeal to
the faculties which judge of fact--namely, our senses, and our internal
consciousness. Can an appeal be made to the same faculties on questions
of practical ends? Or by what other faculty is cognizance taken of them?

Questions about ends are, in other words, questions what things are
desirable. The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and
the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only
desirable as means to that end. What ought to be required of this
doctrine--what conditions is it requisite that the doctrine should
fulfil--to make good its claim to be believed?

The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that
people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that
people hear it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like
manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that
anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. If the end
which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory
and in practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince
any person that it was so. No reason can be given why the general
happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes
it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a
fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all
which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each
person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness,