If it were proposed to forbid absolutely the eating of pork in Christian countries, some great public evils would have to be assigned as the motive.

Were the fatalities attending the eating of pork, on account of _trichiniae_, to become numerous, and unpreventible, there would then be a reason, such as a modern civilized community would consider sufficient, for making the rearing of swine a crime and an immorality.

But no mere sentimental or capricious dislike to the pig, on the part of any number of persons, could now procure an enactment for disusing that animal.
(4) There is a gradual tendency to withdraw from the moral code, observances originating purely in sentiment, and having little or no connexion with human welfare.
We have abandoned the divine sacredness of kings.

We no longer consider ourselves morally bound to denounce and extirpate heretics and witches, still less to observe fasts and sacred days.

Even in regard to the Christian Sabbath, the opinion is growing in favour of withdrawing both the legal and popular sanction formerly so stringent; while the arguments for Sabbath observance are more and more charged with considerations of secular utility.
Should these considerations be held as adequate to support the proposition advanced, they are decisive in favour of Utility as the Moral Standard that _ought to be_.