is a mass of popular opinion, from which the most enlightened persons
are seldom wholly free, into the truth or falsehood of which it
is incumbent on us to inquire, before we can arrive at any firm
conclusions as to the conduct which we ought to pursue in the
regulation of our own minds, or towards our fellow beings; or before
we can ascertain the elementary laws, according to which these
thoughts, from which these actions flow, are originally combined.

The object of the forms according to which human society is administered,
is the happiness of the individuals composing the communities which
they regard, and these forms are perfect or imperfect in proportion
to the degree in which they promote this end.

This object is not merely the quantity of happiness enjoyed by
individuals as sensitive beings, but the mode in which it should
be distributed among them as social beings. It is not enough, if
such a coincidence can be conceived as possible, that one person
or class of persons should enjoy the highest happiness, whilst
another is suffering a disproportionate degree of misery. It is
necessary that the happiness produced by the common efforts, and
preserved by the common care, should be distributed according to
the just claims of each individual; if not, although the quantity
produced should be the same, the end of society would remain
unfulfilled. The object is in a compound proportion to the quantity
of happiness produced, and the correspondence of the mode in which
it is distributed, to the elementary feelings of man as a social
being.

The disposition in an individual to promote this object is called
virtue; and the two constituent parts of virtue, benevolence and