statutes, and maxims, and an idea of justice and honour. War has
its laws as well as peace; and even that sportive kind of war,
carried on among wrestlers, boxers, cudgel-players, gladiators,
is regulated by fixed principles. Common interest and utility
beget infallibly a standard of right and wrong among the parties
concerned.



SECTION V.

WHY UTILITY PLEASES.



PART I.



It seems so natural a thought to ascribe to their utility the
praise, which we bestow on the social virtues, that one would
expect to meet with this principle everywhere in moral writers,
as the chief foundation of their reasoning and enquiry. In common
life, we may observe, that the circumstance of utility is always
appealed to; nor is it supposed, that a greater eulogy can be
given to any man, than to display his usefulness to the public,
and enumerate the services, which he has performed to mankind and
society. What praise, even of an inanimate form, if the
regularity and elegance of its parts destroy not its fitness for
any useful purpose! And how satisfactory an apology for any