Utilitarian philosophy

To Benthamites the promotion of human happiness, to enthusiasts for research the extension of historical science, is the true end of thought and study.

The greatest-happiness principle no doubt suggests that the inhabitants of a country may be better or, so to speak, more comfortably governed by native than by foreign rulers.

The other concession is that, though valid utilitarian arguments may be adduced for resistance to the aggressions of the Boers, the spirit which enabled the United Kingdom and its colonies to carry an arduous war to a successful end owed its force not to these arguments but to a sense of the greatness, to the memory of the achievements, and to faith in the future, of the British Empire.

I shall state hereafter what I believe to be the true point of contact between Austin’s system and the utilitarian philosophy.