nd what harmful?
The answer has the merit of great clearness and simplicity. An action
is good which tends to promote the greatest possible happiness of the
greatest possible number of those affected by it. As with an action, so,
of course, with an institution or a social system. That is useful which
conforms to this principle. That is harmful which conflicts with it.
That is right which conforms to it, that is wrong which conflicts with
it. The greatest happiness principle is the one and supreme principle of
conduct. Observe that it imposes on us two considerations. One is the
_greatest_ happiness. Now happiness is defined as consisting positively
in the presence of pleasure, negatively in the absence of pain. A
greater pleasure is then preferable to a lesser, a pleasure
unaccompanied by pain to one involving pain. Conceiving pain as a minus
quantity of pleasure, we may say that the principle requires us always
to take quantity and pleasure into account, and nothing else. But,
secondly, the _number_ of individuals affected is material. An act might
cause pleasure to one and pain to two. Then it is wrong, unless, indeed,
the pleasure were very great and the pain in each case small. We must
balance the consequences, taking all individuals affected into account,
and "everybody must count for one and nobody for more than one." This
comment is an integral part of the original formula. As between the
happiness of his father, his child, or himself, and the happiness of a
stranger, a man must be impartial. He must only consider the quantity of
pleasure secured or pain inflicted.

Now, in this conception of measurable quantities of pleasure and pain
there is, as many critics have insisted, something unreal and academic.
We shall have to return to the point, but let us first endeavour to
understand the bearing of Bentham's teaching on the problems of his own
time and on the subsequent development of Liberal thought. For this
purpose we will keep to what is real in his doctrine, even if it is not
always defined with academic precision. The salient points that we note,
then, are (1) the subordination of all considerations of right to the
considerations of happiness, (2) the importance of number, and (3) as
the other side of the same doctrine, the insistence on equality or
impartiality between man and man. The common utility which Bentham
considers is the happiness experienced by a number of individuals, all
of whom are reckoned fo