Though Bacon first laid down the broad rule of unvarying induction from experiment, many experiments were made, and many inductions derived from them, before he saw the light; and so before the utilitarian theory was first formally suggested--as it appears to have been by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics--utility may frequently have been a rule of action. It does not necessarily follow, that because a practice is universal, because it is adopted "by saint, by savage, and by sage," it is therefore not the dictate of utility, provided it be admitted that utility was an influencing motive with men before the days of Hume. The followers of established customs may often be blind; but if we hunt back a practice to its first institution, we may find that the leaders were quick-sighted, and kept utility in view, so far as the state of things they had to deal with permitted. A minute inquiry into national prejudices and customs frequently surprises the speculative philosopher, by developing these practices and opinions of the vulgar and illiterate, as the fruit of great knowledge and forethought. Exhibiting, in their full extravagance, the contrasts between different codes of morality, was one of Hume's literary recreations; and it might have been worth his while to have inquired, had it occurred to him, how much of his own favourite utilitarian principle is common to all, or at least to many, of the systems he has thus contrasted with each other. It was a consequence, perhaps, of the limited extent to which he had carried the utilitarian theory, that Hume was charged with having left no distinct line between talent and virtue. By making it seem as if he held that each man was virtuous according as he did good to mankind at large, and vicious in as far as he failed in accomplishing this end, he made way for the argument, that no man can rise high in virtue, unless he also rise high in intellectual gifts; since, without possessing the latter, he is not capable of deciding what actions are, and what are not, conducive to the good of the human race. Many sentiments expressed in the Inquiry appeared to justify this charge.[347:1] There was thus no merit assigned to what is called good intention; and no ground for extending the just approbation of mankind to those who have never attempted to frame a code of morality to themselves, but who, following the track of established opinions, or the rules laid down by some of the many leaders of the human race, believe that, by a steadfast and disinterested pursuit of their adopted course, they are doing that which is right in the eye of God and man. It is certain, however, that in this way many a man may be pursuing a line of conduct conducive to the good of his fellow-creatures, without knowing that his actions have that ultimate end. While he follows the rules that have been laid down for him, his code of morality may be as far superior to that of his clever