their hospitalities were to terminate: any scampish apprentice with designs upon his master's till, any burglar plotting an entry into a goldsmith's shop, may become convinced of his rectitude of purpose, and even take credit for public-spirited zeal, in seeking to appropriate to his own use part of another's wealth, which he may fairly suppose would be productive of more enjoyment if divided between two or more than if left in the hands of one, and that one already perhaps the possessor of more than he knows what to do with.

Precisely the same sophistry will not indeed suffice for those disciples who, adopting the alternative law of the utilitarian code, feel bound to attend to the consequences not of individual actions, but of classes of actions. The cleverest self-deceiver can scarcely bring himself to believe that, because it might suit his personal convenience to kill or steal, killing and stealing would not be prejudicial to society if generally practised. Still, it is only necessary to have, or to fancy one has, public instead of private objects in view, in order to be able to look with approbation, from an utilitarian point of view, on any amount of homicide or robbery. It was the very same Robespierre that, while as yet diocesan judge at Arras, felt constrained to abdicate because, 'behold, one day comes a culprit whose crime merits hanging, and strict-minded, strait-laced Max's conscience will not permit the dooming of any son of Adam to die,' who, shortly after, when sufficiently imbued with the utilitarian spirit, was fully prepared to wade through floods of slaughter towards the enthronisation of his principles—one of those principles evidently being that, if the decimation of mankind would conduce to the greater happiness of the residue, adding more to the happiness of the nine-tenths whom it spared than it took from the tenth whom it destroyed, the said decimation would be a duty incumbent on any one possessed of power to perpetrate it.

Nor are principles like these appealed to only by those who have recourse to them for the vindication of their own procedure. At those petits-soupers—bachelors' dinners is their modern English name, noctes cœnæque deûm their ancient classical—for which some of our London clubs are deservedly celebrated, and with which the Garrick in especial is, in my mind, gratefully associated—at those choice gatherings of congenial spirits, conversation, changing from gay to grave, turns not unfrequently, among other lofty topics, on that which we are here discussing. Then, even at such divine symposium, one at least of the guests is pretty sure to take the part of devil's advocate, and to exercise his forensic skill in showing how easily interchangeable are the names of virtue and iniquity, crime and well-doing. September massacres then find, not their apologist, but their eulogist. Noyades of Carrier, fusilades of Collot d'Herbois, are cited as examples very suitable for imitation in adequate emergencies. Prussia's seizure, on behalf of Germany, of Schleswig and Holstein, on pretence of their being not Danish, but German, and her subsequent retention of them for herself on the plea of their having always been not German, but Danish, are applauded as acts perfectly consistent with each other and with the eternal fitness of things. And all this is urged in the best possible faith. Of the recited enormities, were not some, steps to the regeneration of France—others, to the unifaction of Germany? And what are myriads of lives in comparison with a regenerate—what violation of the most solemn engagements in comparison with a united, people? Did not the millions of Frenchmen who survived the Reign of Terror gain more than was lost by the thousands who were guillotined at Paris, or drowned at Nantes, or shot down at Lyons? Is not Germany likely to turn Kiel to far better account than Denmark ever did or could have done? and will not German ascendency be abundant compensation for Danish decadence? How culpably misplaced, then, were conscientious scruples that would have impeded the march of events in such directions! Ends need but to be great enough to justify any means. Let but the good promise to exceed the evil, and there is no evil which ought not to be done in order that good may come of it. Thus slightly qualified, the Satanic adage, 'Evil, be thou my good,' is, without more ado, accepted as the utilitarian watchword.

And what though it be only the most thorough-paced Utilitarians who go these extreme lengths? These lengths, extreme as they are, are legitimate deductions from tenets held in common by the most moderate and cautious as well as by the most reckless of the sect. Crime in the abstract is condemned not less vehemently by the latter than by the former; but by both equally it is condemned on account, not of its inherent vileness, but solely of its observed results. If the results were different, the agency to which they are due would be fitted with a different epithet. If a world could be conceived to be so organised, or, if this world of ours could be conceived to be so changed as that the practice of killing, stealing, or telling lies would be conducive to the general good, the practice in question would obtain a new name in the Utilitarian vocabulary. Crime would become beneficence; and to kill, to steal, or to tell lies would be not wrong, but right. These are propositions which, without abjuring the prime articles of his creed, the most timid Utilitarian has no alternative but to endorse; but how, then, can he shut his eyes to their obvious application? How presume to rebuke those earnest philanthropists, who, to judge from their habitual language, are firmly of opinion that annihilation of one half of mankind would be a small price to pay for conversion of the other moiety into citizens of a world-wide Red Republic; or those admirers of Prince Bismarck, who, holding national aggrandisement to be the national summum bonum, deem the most solemn treaties that might impede it to be obstacles which it is obligatory on a patriot to set aside? Will not the effects of any given cause vary with the changes in the circumstances in which the cause acts? May it not easily happen that the direct effect of some private crime shall be to augment, instead of to diminish the total happiness of all the persons affected by it? And is it not, then, conceivable that a public crime, provided it be of sufficient magnitude, may more than counterpoise, by the good it is calculated to do, all the harm that all crimes of the same description either have done or are likely to do hereafter? It is idle to reply that such a comparison between public good and evil must needs be mistaken: that the harm, for instance, which violation of treaties does to mankind by sapping the foundations of international confidence, rendering impossible international co-operation, and bringing the very name of international morality into contempt, is infinitely beyond any good it can do in the shape of national aggrandisement. Whether this be so or not is matter of opinion, on which every one may fairly insist on forming his own, and if that opinion be in the negative, a utilitarian agent, in Prince Bismarck's circumstances, would be bound in duty to imitate Prince Bismarck's high-handed policy. In all circumstances of international import, in all cases bearing upon the general interests of society, a Utilitarian, after deciding according to his lights which of the various courses open to him would best promote the general welfare, either immediately by its direct effects, or subsequently and indirectly by the example it would set, would be bound in duty to adopt that course. That course, however wrong it might have appeared in all previous cases, would now become right, as being apparently the one most conducive to the future