nd robust old age.
But he wore out at last, and died June 6, 1832, characteristically
leaving his body to be dissected for the benefit of science. The greater
part of his published writings were collected by Sir John Browning, his
executor, and issued in nine large volumes in 1843.

OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY

From 'An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation'

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters,
_pain_ and _pleasure_. It is for them alone to point out what we ought
to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the
standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and
effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in
all we say, in all we think; every effort we can make to throw off our
subjection will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man
may pretend to abjure their empire; but in reality he will remain
subject to it all the while. The _principle of utility_ recognizes this
subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object
of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of
law. Systems which attempt to question it deal in sounds instead of
sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.

But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means that
moral science is to be improved.

The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work; it will
be proper, therefore, at the outset to give an explicit and determinate
account of what is meant by it. By the principle of utility is meant
that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever,
according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or
diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question; or,
what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that
happiness. I say of every action whatsoever; and therefore not only of
every action of a private individual, but of every measure of
government.

By utility is meant that property in any object whereby it tends to
produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in
the present case comes to the same thing), or (what comes again to the
same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or
unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered: if that party be
the community in general, then the happiness of the community; if a
particu