It is also noteworthy that an omnipotent Deity is supposed incapable of altering Mr.
Mill's mind and moral perceptions.
Mr.Mill's decision is right, but it is difficult indeed to see how, {195} without the recognition of an "absolute morality," he can justify so utter and final an abandonment of all utility in favour of a clear and distinct moral perception.
These two ideas, the "right" and the "useful," being so distinct here and now, a greater difficulty meets us with regard to their origin from some common source, than met us before when considering the first beginnings of certain bodily structures.

For the distinction between the "right" and the "useful" is so fundamental and essential that not only does the idea of benefit not enter into the idea of duty, but we see that the very fact of an act _not_ being beneficial to us makes it the more praiseworthy, while gain tends to diminish the merit of an action.

Yet this idea, "right," thus excluding, as it does, all reference to utility or pleasure, has nevertheless to be constructed and evolved from utility and pleasure, and ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we are to accept pure Darwinianism: if we are to accept, that is, the evolution of man's psychical nature and highest powers, by the exclusive action of "Natural Selection," from such faculties as are possessed by brutes; in other words, if we are to believe that the conceptions of the highest human morality arose through minute and fortuitous variations of brutal desires and appetites in all conceivable directions.
It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conservation of any such variations could ever have given rise to the faintest beginning of any such moral perceptions; that by "Natural Selection" alone the maxim _fiat justitia, ruat coelum_ could never have been excogitated, still less have found a widespread acceptance; that it is impotent to suggest even an approach towards an explanation of the _first beginning_ of the idea of "right." It need hardly be remarked that acts may be distinguished not only as pleasurable, useful, or beautiful, but also as good in two different senses: (1) _materially_ moral acts, and (2) acts which are _formally_ moral.

The first are acts good in themselves, _as acts_, apart from any intention of the agent which may or may not have been directed towards{196} "right." The second are acts which are good not only in themselves, as acts, but also in the deliberate _intention_ of the agent who recognizes his actions as being "right." Thus acts may be _materially_ moral or immoral, in a very high degree, without being in the least _formally_ so.
For example, a person may tend and minister to a sick man with scrupulous care and exactness, having in view all the time nothing but the future reception of a good legacy.

Another may, in the dark, shoot his own father, taking him to be an assassin, and so commit what is _materially_ an act of parricide, though _formally_ it is only an act of self-defence of more or less culpable rashness.