Utility has, or might have, all the sanctions attaching to any other system of morals.  Those sanctions are either External or Internal.  The External are the hope of favour and the fear of displeasure (1) from our fellow-creatures, or (2) from the Ruler of the Universe, along with any sympathy or affection for them, or love and awe of Him, inclining us apart from selfish motives.  There is no reason why these motives should not attach themselves to utilitarian morality.

The Internal Sanction, under every standard of duty, is of one uniform character—­a feeling in our own mind; a pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty, which in properly cultivated moral natures rises, in the more serious cases, into shrinking from it as an impossibility.  This feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty, is the essence of Conscience; a complex phenomenon, involving associations from sympathy, from love, and still more from fear; from the recollections of childhood, and of all our past life; from self-esteem, desire of the esteem of others, and occasionally even self-abasement.  This extreme complication is an obstacle to our supposing that it can attach to other objects than what are found at present to excite it.  The binding force, however, is the mass of feeling to be broken through in order to violate our standard of right, and which, if we do violate that standard, will have to be afterwards encountered as remorse.

Thus, apart from external sanctions, the ultimate sanction, under Utility, is the same as for other standards, namely, the conscientious feelings of mankind.  If there be anything innate in conscience, there is nothing more likely than that it should be a regard to the pleasures and pains of others.  If so, the intuitive ethics would be the same as the utilitarian; and it is admitted on all hands that a large portion of morality turns upon what is due to the interests of fellow-creatures.

On the other hand, if, as the author believes, the moral feelings are not innate, they are not for that reason less natural.  It is natural to man to speak, to reason, to cultivate the ground, to build cities, though these are acquired faculties.  So the moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural outgrowth of it; capable, in a certain small degree, of springing up spontaneously, and of being brought to a high pitch by means of cultivation.  It is also susceptible, by the use of the external sanctions and the force of early impressions, of being cultivated in almost any direction, and of being perverted to absurdity and mischief.