57). 'Justice . . . is coincident with utility' (i.
121). 'If my mother were in a house on fire, and I had a ladder
outside with which I could save her, she would not, because she was
my mother, have any greater claim than the other inmates on my
exertions' (i. 83). 'But,' says an objector, 'your mother nourished
you in the helplessness of infancy.' 'When she first subjected
herself,' replies Godwin, 'to the necessity of these cares, she was
probably influenced by no particular motives of benevolence to her
future offspring. . . . It is the disposition of the mind . . .
that entitles to respect,' and consequently justice demands that I
should rescue the most meritorious person first.' All moral science
may be reduced to this one head, calculation of the future' (ii.
468), and consequently a promise is not an obligation. The
statement that it is essential that we should be able to depend on
engagements 'would be somewhat more accurate if we said "that it was
essential to various circumstances of human intercourse, that we
should be known to bestow a steady attention upon the quantities of
convenience or inconvenience, of good or evil, that might arise to
others from our conduct"' (i.
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