meritorious it might have been on her part to consent to die for her countrymen, it was not her duty so to die, nor, consequently, had they a right to put her to death. She would have been at least negatively right in refusing to die, while they were guilty of a very positive and a very grievous wrong in killing her, notwithstanding that both she and they were perfectly agreed that for her to be killed would be for the incalculably greater happiness of a greater number, exceeding the lesser number in the proportion of several hundreds of thousands to one. It is true that throughout this affair every one concerned was labouring under a gross delusion--that there was no real use in putting Iphigenia to death, and that nothing but superstition made anybody suppose there was. I do not think the case is one less to our purpose on that account, for Utilitarians, like other fallible mortals, are liable to deceive themselves. They never can be quite secure of the genuineness of the utility on which they rely, and in default of positive knowledge they will always be reduced to act, as the Grecian chiefs did, according to the best of their convictions. Nevertheless, for the satisfaction of those who distrust romance and insist upon reality, we will leave fable for fact, and take as our next illustration an incident that may any day occur. Imagine three shipwrecked mariners to have leapt from their sinking vessel into a cockboat scarce big enough to hold them, and the two slimmer of the three to have presently discovered that there was little or no chance of either of them reaching land unless their over-weighted craft were lightened of their comparatively corpulent companion. Next, imagine yourself in the fat sailor's place, and then consider whether you would feel it incumbent on you to submit quietly to be drowned in order that the residuum of happiness might be greater than if either you all three went to the bottom, or than if you alone were saved. Would you not, far from recognising any such moral obligation, hold yourself morally justified in throwing the other two overboard, if you were strong enough, and if need were, to prevent their similarly ousting you? But if it were not your duty to allow yourself to be cast into the sea, the others could have no right to cast you out; so that, if they did cast you out, they would clearly be doing not right but wrong. And yet, as clearly, their wrong-doing would have conduced to the greater happiness of the greater number, inasmuch as, while only one life could otherwise have been saved, it would save two, and inasmuch as, _coeteris paribus_, two persons would necessarily derive twice as much enjoyment from continued existence as one would. Moreover, their wrong-doing would be of a kind calculated always to produce similarly useful results. It cannot, I suppose, be denied that a rule to the effect that whenever forfeiture of one life would save two, one life