The principle of utility does not demand that we shall always or habitually attend to the general good; although it does demand that we shall not pursue our own particular good by means that are inconsistent with that paramount object.  It permits the pursuit of our own pleasures as pleasure.  Even as regards the good of others, it commonly requires us to be governed by partial, rather than by general benevolence; by the narrower circle of family and friends rather than by the larger humanity that embraces mankind.  It requires us to act where we act with the utmost effect; that is, within the sphere best known to us.  The limitations to this principle, the adjustment of the selfish to the social motives, of partial sympathy to general benevolence, belong to the detail of ethics.

The second misconception of Utility is to confound it with a particular hypothesis concerning the Origin of Benevolence, commonly styled the selfish system.  Hartley and some others having affirmed that benevolence is not an ultimate fact, but an emanation from self-love, through the association of ideas, it has been fancied that these writers dispute the existence of disinterested benevolence or sympathy.  Now, the selfish system, in its literal import, is flatly inconsistent with obvious facts, but this is not the system contended for by the writers in question.  Still, this distortion has been laid hold of by the opponents of utility, and maintained to be a necessary part of that system; hence the supporters of utility are styled ‘selfish, sordid, and cold-blooded calculators.’  But, as already said, the theory of utility is not a theory of motives; it holds equally good whether benevolence be what it is called, or merely a provident regard to self:  whether it be a simple fact, or engendered by association on self-regard.  Paley mixed up Utility with self-regarding motives; but his theory of these is miserably shallow and defective, and amounted to a denial of genuine benevolence or sympathy.

Austin’s Fifth LECTURE is devoted to a full elucidation of the meanings of Law.  He had, at the outset, made the distinction between Laws properly so called, and Laws improperly so called.  Of the second class, some are closely allied to Laws proper, possessing in fact their main or essential attributes; others are laws only by metaphor.  Laws proper, and those closely allied to them among laws proper, are divisible into three classes.  The first are the Divine Law or Laws.  The second is named Positive Law or Positive Laws; and corresponds with Legislation.  The third he calls Positive Morality, or positive moral rules; it is the same as Morals or Ethics.

Reverting to the definition of Law, he gives the following three essentials:—­1.  Every law is a command, and emanates from a determinate source or another. 2.  Every sanction is an eventual evil annexed to a command. 3.  Every duty supposes a command whereby it is created.  Now, tried by these tests, the laws of God are laws proper; so are positive laws, by which are meant laws established by monarchs as supreme political superiors, by subordinate political superiors, and by subjects, as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights.