o with the worth of the agent.' Here, however, I
confess myself unable to follow him. That an act may possess morality
independent of the agent, may be intelligible on the assumption that
morality means simply utility, and nothing more; but how, even then,
worth can be evinced by the performance of an immoral action, is beyond
my comprehension, except upon the further assumption that there may be
worth in immorality.

Waiving, however, these and all other objections, let us for the moment,
and for the sake of argument, assume that morality and utility are
really one and the same thing, that the right or wrong of an act depends
entirely on its results, and then let us observe how utterly without
rudder or compass to assist him in steering correctly will be the
best-intentioned navigator of the ocean of life.

We can seldom, if ever, be quite sure what will be the result of our
conduct. Meaning to cure, we may only too probably kill; meaning to
kill, we may not impossibly cure. Until a thing is done, we cannot
determine as to its utility; nor, consequently, in an utilitarian sense,
as to the morality of doing it. We must trust implicitly to our skill in
calculating events, and if that skill happen to fail us, our conduct may
become culpable. With the most earnest desire to act righteously, we can
only guess beforehand whether what we propose doing will turn out to be
righteous, and can never be sure, therefore, that we are not going to do
something wicked.

Here I shall, of course, and very properly, be reminded that what
Utilitarianism requires to be taken into account, are not merely the
probable consequences of some proposed act, but the usual consequences
of all acts of the same description; so that its disciples, instead of
being left to their conjectures about the future, may be said to have
all past experience to refer to. And undeniably Utilitarianism does
require this; thereby, however, contradicting itself as, I just now
hinted, it would presently be found doing. It does indeed declare those
actions only to be moral which in the long run are conducive to, or at
least not opposed to, the general happiness; but it also says that the
morality of each particular action depends on its own particular
consequences. So that the docile disciple who should do something which,
though useful in the long run, happened to be otherwise in his
particular case--who, for instance, should save the life of a
fellow-creature of w