[320] I ought to remind the reader that the argument in chap. [xiii.] only leads to the first principle of Utilitarianism, if it be admitted that Happiness is the only thing ultimately and intrinsically Good or Desirable. I afterwards in chap. [xiv.] endeavoured to bring Common Sense to this admission.
[321] That is, so far as we mean by Justice anything more than the simple negation of arbitrary inequality.
[322] It ought to be observed that Cumberland does not adopt a hedonistic interpretation of Good. Still, I have followed Hallam in regarding him as the founder of English Utilitarianism: since it seems to have been by a gradual and half-unconscious process that ‘Good’ came to have the definitely hedonistic meaning which it has implicitly in Shaftesbury’s system, and explicitly in that of Hume.
[323] I should point out that Hume uses “utility” in a narrower sense than that which Bentham gave it, and one more in accordance with the usage of ordinary language. He distinguishes the “useful” from the “immediately agreeable”: so that while recognising “utility” as the main ground of our moral approbation of the more important virtues, he holds that there are other elements of personal merit which we approve because they are “immediately agreeable,” either to the person possessed of them or to others. It appears, however, more convenient to use the word in the wider sense in which it has been current since Bentham.
[324] Lecky, Hist. of Eur. Mor. chap. i, pp. 37, 40 seqq. (13th impression).
[326] Book iii. chap. iv. § [1].
[327] It will be seen that I do not here assume in their full breadth the conclusions of chap. [xiv.] of the preceding Book.
[328] Cf. J. Grote, An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy, chap. v.