substance of what Protagoras and Epicurus taught in Greece, two
thousand years before. It is the system of Ethics to which all must
incline, who ignore the spiritual side of man's nature and his hopes
of a better world. It is a morality of the earth, earthy.

2. Utilitarianism has not been formulated like the Athanasian Creed.
It is impossible to state it and combat it in a form to which all
Utilitarians will subscribe. Indeed, it is an amiable weakness of
theirs, when confronted with the grosser consequences that flow from
their theories, to run off to some explanation, true enough, but quite
out of keeping with the primary tenets of their school. We will take
what may be called a "mean reading" of the indications which various
Utilitarian thinkers afford of their mind and philosophy. These
authorities, then, teach two main heads of doctrine:--

(1) That the last end and final good of man lies in this world, and
consists in the greatest happiness of the greatest number of mankind,
happiness being taken to mean pleasure as well of the senses as of the
understanding, such pleasure as can be had in this world, along with
immunity from pain. (Mill's _Utilitarianism_, 2nd Ed., pp. 9, seq.)

(2) That human acts are _right_ or _wrong_, according as they are
_useful_ or _hurtful_, that is, according as their consequences make
for or against the above-mentioned end of social happiness.

3. Consequences, as Utilitarians very properly point out, are either
_general_ or _particular_. They add that, in pronouncing an action to
be good or evil according to its consequences, they mean the general
and not the particular consequences. In other words, they bid us
consider, not the immediate results of _this action_, but what would