all should be required to come up, and a degree beyond it which is not
obligatory, but meritorious. It is incumbent on every one to restrain
the pursuit of his personal objects within the limits consistent with
the essential interests of others. What those limits are, it is the
province of ethical science to determine; and to keep all individuals
and aggregations of individuals within them, is the proper office of
punishment and of moral blame. If in addition to fulfilling this
obligation, persons make the good of others a direct object of
disinterested exertions, postponing or sacrificing to it even innocent
personal indulgences, they deserve gratitude and honour, and are fit
objects of moral praise. So long as they are in no way compelled to this
conduct by any external pressure, there cannot be too much of it; but a
necessary condition is its spontaneity; since the notion of a happiness
for all, procured by the self-sacrifice of each, if the abnegation is
really felt to be a sacrifice, is a contradiction. Such spontaneity by
no means excludes sympathetic encouragement; but the encouragement
should take the form of making self-devotion pleasant, not that of
making everything else painful. The object should be to stimulate
services to humanity by their natural rewards; not to render the pursuit
of our own good in any other manner impossible, by visiting it with the
reproaches of other and of our own conscience. The proper office of
those sanctions is to enforce upon every one, the conduct necessary to
give all other persons their fair chance: conduct which chiefly consists
in not doing them harm, and not impeding them in anything which without
harming others does good to themselves. To this must of course be added,
that when we either expressly or tacitly undertake to do more, we are
bound to keep our promise. And inasmuch as every one, who avails himself
of the advantages of society, leads others to expect from him all such
positive good offices and disinterested services as the moral
improvement attained by mankind has rendered customary, he deserves