would bring about general happiness and well-being. This, so far, has
not been done. Utility has been a "hand-to-mouth" moral basis, and
certain rough rules of conduct have grown up by experience and the
necessities of life, without any definite investigation into, or
codifying of, experience. Man's moral basis as a rule is a compound of
partially accepted revelations and partially admitted consciences, with
a practical application of the principle of "that which works best". The
majority are not philosophers, and care little for a logical basis. They
are unconscious empirics, and their morality is empirical.

Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, considering that the maxim did not sufficiently
guard the interests of the minority, and that, so far as was possible,
these also should be considered and guarded, added another phrase; his
basis ran: "The greatest happiness of the greatest number, with the
least injury to any." The rule was certainly improved by the addition,
but it did not remove many of the objections raised.

It was urged by the Utilitarian that morality had developed out of the
social side of human beings; that men, as social animals, desired to
live in permanent relations with each other, and that this resulted
in the formation of families; men could not be happy in solitude; the
persistence of these groups, amid the conflicting interests of the
individuals who composed them, could only be secured by recognising that
the interests of the majority must prevail, and form the rule of conduct
for the whole family. Morality, it was pointed out, thus began in family
relations, and conduct which disrupted the family was wrong, while that
which strengthened and consolidated it was right. Thus family morality
was established. As families congregated together for mutual protection
and support, their separate interests as families were found to be
conflicting, and so a _modus vivendi_ was sought in the same