3 “I conceive that when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing or not do it, he does nothing else but consider whether it be better for himself to do it or not to do it.”—Hobbes _On Liberty and Necessity._ “Good and evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions.”—Ibid. _Leviathan_, part i. ch. xvi. “Obligation is the necessity of doing or omitting any action in order to be happy.”—Gay’s dissertation prefixed to King’s _Origin of Evil_, p. 36. “The only reason or motive by which individuals can possibly be induced to the practice of virtue, must be the feeling immediate or the prospect of future private happiness.”—Brown _On the Characteristics_, p. 159. “En tout temps, en tout lieu, tant en matière de morale qu’en matière d’esprit, c’est l’intérêt personnel qui dicte le jugement des particuliers, et l’intérêt général qui dicte celui des nations.... Tout homme ne prend dans ses jugements conseil que de son intérêt.”—Helvétius _De l’Esprit_, discours ii. “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.... The principle of utility recognises 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.”—Bentham’s _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. i. “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.”—Ibid. “Je regarde l’amour éclairé de nous-mêmes comme le principe de tout sacrifice moral.”—D’Alembert quoted by D. Stewart, _Active and Moral Powers_, vol. i. p. 220. 4 “Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good; pain is in itself an evil, and, indeed, without exception, the only evil, or else the words good and evil have no meaning.”—Bentham’s _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. x.