when privileges were invaded. Whether what upon the whole, tended most to the happiness of mankind, was not also morally good, was never once, he said, made a question.
Since benevolence, therefore, was the only motive which could bestow upon any action the character of virtue, the greater the bene|volence which was evidenced by any action, the greater the praise which must belong to it.
Those actions which aimed at the happi|ness of a great community, as they demon|strated a more enlarged benevolence than those which aimed only at that of a smaller system, so were they, likewise, proportionally the more virtuous. The most virtuous of all affections, therefore, was that which em|braced as its object the happiness of all intel|ligent beings. The least virtuous, on the con|trary, of those to which the character of vir|tue could in any respect belong, was that which aimed no further than at the happi|ness of an individual, such as a son, a brother, a friend.
In directing all our actions to promote the greatest possible good, in submitting all infe|rior
