[28] The difference between the significations of the two words is discussed later.
[29] As, for instance, when Bentham explains (_Principles of Morals and Legislation_, chap. i. § i. note) that his fundamental principle “states the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question as being the right and proper end of human action,” we cannot understand him really to _mean_ by the word “right” “conducive to the general happiness,” though his language in other passages of the same chapter (§§ ix. and x.) would seem to imply this; for the proposition that it is conducive to general happiness to take general happiness as an end of action, though not exactly a tautology, can hardly serve as the fundamental principle of a moral system.
[31] ‘Ought’ is here inapplicable, for a reason presently explained.
[32] In Chemistry we regard the antecedents (elements) as still existing in and constituting the consequent (compound) because the latter is exactly similar to the former in weight, and because we can generally cause this compound to disappear and obtain the elements in its place. But we find nothing at all like this in the growth of mental phenomena: the psychical consequent is in no respect exactly similar to its antecedents, nor can it be resolved into them. I should explain that I am not here arguing the question whether the _validity_ of moral judgments is affected by a discovery of their psychical antecedents. This question I reserve for subsequent discussion. See Book iii. chap. i. § 4.
[33] I do not even imply that any combination of individuals could completely realise the state of political relations which I conceive ‘ought to’ exist. My conception would be futile if it had no relation to practice: but it may merely delineate a pattern to which no more than an approximation is practically possible.
[34] We do not commonly say that particular physical facts are apprehended by the Reason: we consider this faculty to be conversant in its discursive operation with the relation of judgments or propositions: and the intuitive reason (which is here rather in question) we restrict to the apprehension of universal truths, such as the axioms of Logic and Mathematics.