What is utilitarianism?

266 Page 234. If you want to see the destruction of all principle, and all right feeling, everything good, read this page. He says: 'Virtue is the judicious selection of that course of action most conducive to intense and permanent happiness, and the adoption of a line of conduct which is destructive to happiness is vice. As a compound being man can derive happiness from two sources, the animal senses and the mental faculties. If he rejects the nobler spheres of pleasure for those that are baser, he is vicious; if he abandons sensual gratification for intellectual pursuits, he is virtuous, because the sum-total of intellectual happiness is greater than the sum-total of sensual happiness. Virtue is selfishness acting with judgment: vice is selfishness acting ignorantly and blindly. A man gets drunk either because he does not know that intemperance is ruinous to his constitution, or because he has so little acquaintance with the laws of mental perspective as to suppose that a small present gratification is preferable to a great remote happiness, just as a child supposes the apple in its hand to be larger than the apple tree at a distance.'

As to the general principle of progress, it is (p. 540) only precarious approximate generalisations confined to a small portion of mankind, and there is need of great flexibility in our generalisations. And "who can tell?" etc. See, too, page 541, how much "remains inaccessible to us." Unhappily the art of life (p. 523), to which all other arts are subordinated, has still to be created. Rules of conduct (p. 549) are only provisional. Right and wrong he has not an idea of. Morality, prudence, and aesthetics, all have to be created; but (p. 544) the ends to be aimed at must be known, or laws of phenomena are useless. Most true. Some general principle or standard must still be sought (page 555). The end, however, is conduciveness to the happiness of mankind, or rather of all sentient beings. Has man no higher or better? What is that happiness? On this he is silent, save that present happiness may give way to ideal nobleness; but this in result will be mere happiness existing in the world. Of happiness, divine or heavenly, of course he has no idea. It is, at best, what is under the sun, the days of the life of our vanity. Life now is almost universally puerile and insignificant; it is not happiness such as human beings with highly developed faculties can care to have. Moral, spiritual, divine happiness, grace in the heart towards others, is simply absent from his mind. It is a blank.

269 Truth is the statement of a thing as it is, on human testimony if the subject of it, on divine if beyond it. It cannot be denied that there may be facts beyond human knowledge; nor can it be denied that there may be a competency to make them known to us - nor that a superior power may act, or facts may act on our hearts and consciences. Conclusions from facts may be true and inoperative. Reason may set aside reasons, error, and so far be useful as to be being open to truth; but this man and his set know only setting aside all conceptions, and reducing the mind to abstract power - an absurdity on the face of it, for there must be education - "Universal scepticism" being the right state. And when he is there, what is he to do? Truth is not to be gained - Reason cannot go beyond mere humanly known facts. Leave God out - Utilitarianism, or selfish baseness is the only motive; passion and force are there, who is to control them? Craving after an unseen world irresistible - Scepticism practically in the mass, and venal degradation have always gone together.

According to philanthropy the estimate of every thing is utility. The language of the heart is, "Who will show us any good"? And as much, very much, of Christianity so evidently tends to the blessing of society, in promoting soberness, righteousness, and temperance; therefore man, in his effort to promote these for his present good, and for his own ends, will boldly say he is forwarding the gospel. He will acknowledge the excellence of the gospel in the very act of subverting its principles. "Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God"? And the same principle might be applied to those who take the standard of utility, instead of that of the will of God. To do so is to get off the ground of faith, and to walk by sight. Faith knows nothing of results; it considers them not; God is its sufficiency and warrant for action and expectation. On the contrary, man proposes a certain scheme, in order to a supposed result, and pursues it by all the means he can muster, and with a singleness of eye and a determinateness of purpose which may well shame the children of light. But what said the Lord in reply to the sneer of the Utilitarians of His day? — "Why was this waste of the ointment made, why not given to the poor"? What was His vindication of the apparently unmeaning action? It was done to Jesus. Faith wrought by love, and a lasting memorial is given to the work of a poor woman, which called forth the scorn of man, whilst the most splendid efforts of philanthropy have perished or been forgotten.

The whole moral world is wholly and absolutely outside their reach. Morality they have - none; they will tell me it is the pursuit of the good of all. And what is that good? and who is to decide it? Their happiness; but for no two men is it the same, if I take man's thoughts. It may be scalping, or opium, for the existence of passions forms no part of their philosophy. Many good people are not aware where philosophy has got to. Kant, in his treatise on morality, - a man not nearly so bad as the fruits of the philosophy he set going - declares in terms that if the will of God, or fear of God, be introduced, there can be none. It is a principle outside man. Morality is the principle of pure reason applied to practical conduct. But he admits at the end that how the principle of pure reason can be so applied it is impossible to say. Mill tells me that justice is the animal desire for vengeance modified by utility to all. Kant's is merely natural conscience with the name changed, and shutting out relationships with God and man, on which all morality is based. Mill, remark, feeling a motive was needed as a rule, makes vengeance the motive. Animal vengeance the sole motive of morality - the rule; one which has been never settled yet, save by Christ.

It is a grave and humbling fact that the immortality and even existence of the human soul, distinct from the body, should be seriously questioned in Christendom; yea, that Scripture should be wrested against it by such as love to have it so. But so it is, with the sanction of some who have the reputation of piety. All things from the highest downwards are now put on their trial, as if man were judge, and not God. Nothing is sacred for enquiring spirits and unhallowed eyes. Because human tradition is stupidly false and blinding, men are indisposed to believe anything on God's word, as if He were altogether such an one as themselves. Gnosticism* was an early plague — not less is Agnosticism in these days. Senses only they admit in evidence, and are proud of the deductions and inductions of reason, unconscious that they thus necessarily come short of the glory of God, and of all that is most enduring, momentous, and truly elevating for man. For their very principle is to ignore the everlasting future for weal or woe. It is to live for self, though it may claim the greatest happiness for the greatest number, in rebellion against God and His gracious testimony of Christ in person and redemption, whereby, through the Spirit, He delivers from sin and wrath into present, living, imperishable relationship with Himself.

Even true disciples are caught by the cry of utilitarianism that that which is spent upon Christ alone is "waste," and taken from the poor; and such pleas become for many effectual arguments against what true devotedness to Him demands. Those who would understand and appreciate the laying down of life for His sake, can often not understand the sacrifice of usefulness on His account, even though the demand come in the way of duty. They will say, indeed, that duty cannot really demand such sacrifice; but it does very often demand that we leave entirely out of question all consideration of results, and follow simply and without reserve the dictates of the Word. And it is certainly true that the thought of usefulness governs often disastrously even the interpretation of the word of God itself. Results are never really safe as guidance, and this for at least two plain reasons. First, because they must follow the action; and therefore come too late to determine it. And secondly, if it be thought that we can profit by the experience of others, so many things combine to produce them that we are constantly in danger of mistaking the real cause. Of course, if God's word has spoken decisively, even in the least particular, then all pondering of results is mere unfaithfulness.

(2) In the midst of all this there comes the beauteous story of the woman's ointment, always to be told wherever the gospel is preached, for a memorial of her: protest as it is against the utilitarianism which in the gospel itself would make Christ of less account than the "poor" who are to be benefited by Him. Ah, let us remember the claims of the Christ of God, if the poor themselves are not to suffer. This utilitarianism may well hide under it a Judas as chief instigator, while it seduces with its fair seeming even true disciples.

The fact is, it is simply positivism borrowed from Comte which knows nothing but what is presented to the senses, with perhaps some inferences, and leaves every moral and divine idea wholly out, and covers absurdities and rejection of what is intuitively known by what is illogical and contradictory too. It is merely the absurdity of positivism; conscience and morality all gone, as is the possibility of a higher power acting influentially on me. I am to seek the good of all. Why so? What motive have I for doing so? What is the good? Am I the judge of it, or are they? And who are they? It is as empty as it is bad. His affinity with another man's wife he calls his first marriage to her (one of mind and affection, I dare say); and then he married her after her husband's death, who was a convenient sort of man that let things go on. There was immense moral and mental weakness in Mr. Mill, he was in a state of despairing melancholy for a long while.

All this has a solemn voice for the present generation; and those that have ears to hear, let them hear. Men are becoming increasingly heedless as to the interests and destinies of the truth of God in the earth. Christ and Belial are all alike, provided the wheels of the vast machine of utilitarianism be not clogged in their movement. You may hold what principles you please provided you hold them in the background; and thus men of the most conflicting principles can unite and hold those principles in abeyance while with ardour and energy they pursue the phantom of worldliness.