Tradition : Principally with Reference to Mythology and the

12 THE LA W OF NA TIONS.
the basis of Bentham's juridical system " 9 (supra, p. 9)
is not distinguishable from, and in any case ultimately
depends upon, his theory of utility as a foundation, or,
as his later disciples say, a " standard" of morals.
Such a standard is the negation of all morality; and if
it ever came to stand alone every notion of morals would
be obliterated, because, being open to every interpretation,
and incapable of supplying any definite rule itself,
t would abrogate every other, and under a plausibl
rm abandon mankind to its lusts and i
In the Pall Mall Gazette, April 12, 1871, an articl
entitled " Mr Darwin on Conscience," discusses B
thamism with reference to Darwinism. There is a fitr
in this which does not " immediately appear.
The writer says :
" What is called the question of tlie moral sense is really two :
how the moral faculty is acquired, and how it is regulated. Why
do we obey conscience or feel pain in disobeying it ? And why does
conscience prescribe one kind of actions and condemn another kind ?
To put it more technically, there is the question of the subjective
existence of conscience, and there is the question of its obj ective pre-
scriptions."
*
I will avail myself of this distinction, and, setting
aside the questions referring to the " subjective existence
of conscience/' I will ask attention only to " its
objective prescriptions." Assuming, then, the operations
of conscience in the individual man, there will
necessarily also have been in the course of history some
9 " From utility, then, we may denominate a principle that may serve to
preside over and govern, as it were, such arrangements as shall be made
of the several institutions, or combinations of institutions, that compose
the matter of this science." Bentham's " Fragment on Government/5 xliii.,
and at p. 45, the principle of utility is declared "all-sufficient," . . . that
" principle which furnishes us with that reason, which alone depends not
upon any higher reason, but which is itself the sole and all-sufficient reason
for every point of practice whatsoever."