Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/277

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UTHINA


241


UTILITARIANISM


Home", which was built, at a cost of $175,000, by the ate Mrs. Mary Judge, and given to the bishop to be ised as a hospital and home for aged and disabled uiners.

Confronted with unfavourable localities and the un- ■ertainties of the permanency of mininK towns, the liishop of Salt Lake has succeeded in establishing in lis diocese permanent parishes, outsitle of Salt Lake md Ogden, at Park City, Eureka, Helper, and Green {iver, L'tah; and at Austin, Tonopah and Eureka, Nevada. Annexed to these p;irishes are some forty nissions and mining stations visited by the diocesan )riests at measured intervals.

Whitney. Hist, of Utah (Salt Lake Citv. 1S92) ; Chittenden, .i/e and Traveh of Father Dc Smet (Harper. N. Y.. 1893) ; Harris, ne Catholic Church in Utah (Salt Lake City, 1909); Talmage, treat Salt Lake (Salt Lake City. 1900) ; Slate Papers and Reports.

. \V. R. Harris.

nthina, a titular see of Africa Proconsularis, suffra-

an of Carthage. Uthina is mentioned by Ptolemy

IV, 3, ;J4), Phny (V, 4), and the Peutinger Tables, 'linj- and an inscription call it a colony. From the iccounts given by geograj^hers the site seems to be the uins known as Henshir Ondna, near a station on the ailway from Tunis to Kef, Tunisia. These ruins oc- upy a surface nearly three miles in circumference, ovcring a hilly plateau, and commanding the left )ank of the MiUan wdilt/s: there are the remains of a ortress, cisterns, an aqueduct, triumphal arch, the- itre, amphitheatre, basilica with a circular crypt, )ridge, etc. Many beautiful mosaics are to be found here. L^thina had a bishop in the time of Tertullian )y whom he was severely criticized (De Monogamia,

ii). Five others are known: Felix, present at the

>)uncil of Carthage (2.56); Lampadius, at the Coun- il of Aries in Gaul (314); Isaac, at the Conference of !^arfhage (411), where he had as rival the Donatist, ■"elicianus; Gallonius, at the Council of Carthage 419); and Quietus at that of .525.

Gu^RlN. Voyage archeologique dans la rigence de Tunis, II Paris. 1.S62). 283; Toclotte. Geogr. dcVAfrique Chrttienne pro- onsulairc (Paris, 1892). 316-18.

S. P^TRIDfes.

ntica, a titular see in Africa Proconsularis. The it_\- w;is founded by Tyrian colonists at the mouth if the Bagradas River in the vicinity of rich mines, 110 B. c. or 287 years before Carthage. It had two larbours, and during the Punic wars waa the ally ather than the vassal of Carthage. In 212 B. c, it ras seized and plundered by the Roman, Ottacilius. Iftcr the fall of C.irthage, 146 B. c, Utica became the •apital of the Roman province of Africa, and was a ivila.'i libera (free city), perhaps even immunis (ex- mpt from taxes). It was here that Cato the fotmger, called Cato of Utica, killed himself after his lefeat at Thapsus, 46 b. c. Augustus granted the ight of citizenship to the inhabitants of Utica, which inder Adrian became a colony, under the tiame of jolonia .Julia .Eli;i Iladriana Augusta L'tica, and tin- ier Septimius .Severus and Car.acalla, a cnlonia juris laUci. \\'hpn Carthage again became the capital of loman Africa. Utica pa-ssed to the seconil rank. On

4 .A.ug., 258 A. D.. more than 153 martyrs, accord-

ng to Saint .\ugustine, and according to Prudentius bout 300, suffered for the Faith at Utica; they are mown under the n.ime of Massa cnmlitln, and later a lasilica was built there in their honour (Monceaux, 'Hi-stoire litteraire de I'Afriquc Chr(^tienne", II, 41-147). A number of bi.shops are mentioned by listorians (Morcelli, " .\frica Christi.ina", I, 362, 11, .50; Gams, "Series Kpiscoponim ". I. 470; Toulotte, ' Geographic de I'Afrique Chretienne. Proconsulaire", 118-323). The oldest-known bishop, Aurelius, was )resent at the Coimcil of Carthage, 2.56; the last, 'otentinus, in 6S4, at the Council of Toledo in Spain, phere he had t.aken refuge after the Anab invasion, rhis invasion and the choking up of its harbours with XV.— lb


sand washed in by the Bagradas, hastened the down- fall of Utica. Its ruins are at Bou-Chateur, not far from Porto-Farina, with which it is sometimes wrongly confounded. One may see here large reser- voirs, an amphitheatre, and some remains of a wall. Smith, Diet. Greek and Roman Geog., 3. v.

S. Vailh£.

Utilitarianism (Lat. utilis, useful) is a modern form of the llcdoni.stic ethical theory which teaches that the end of human conduct is happiness, and that consequently the discriiniiialing norm which dis- tinguishes conduct into right and wrong is pleasure and pain. In the words of one of its most distin- guished advocates, John Stuart Mill, "the creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, utility or the greatest happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happi- ness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure" (Utilitarianism, ii, 1S63). Although the term Utilitarianism did not come into vogue until it had been adopted by Bentham, and until the essential tenets of the system had already been advocated by many English philosophers, it may be said that, with the important exception of Hclve- tius (De I'csprit, 1758), from whom Bentham seems to have borrowed, all the champions of this system have been English. The favour which it has enjoyed in English speculation may be ascribed in a great measure to the dominance of Locke's teaching, that all our ideas are derived exclusively from sense exi)erience. This epistemological doctrine, hostile to all shades of intentionalism, finds its ethical comple- ment in the th(>ory that our moral ideas of right and wrong, our moral judgments, and conscience itself are derived originally from the experienced results of actions.

Tracing the stream of Utilitarian thought from its sources, we may start with Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651 ), whose fundamental ethical axiom is that right conduct is that which promotes our own welfare; and the social code of morals depends for its ju.stification on whether or not it serves the wellbeing of those who observe it. A Protestant divine, Richard Cumberland (De leg- ibus naturae, 1672), engaged in the refutation of Hobbes's doctrine, that morahty depends on civil enactment, sought to show that the greatest happi- ness principle is a law of the Gospel and a law of nature: "The greatest possible benevolence of every rational agent towards all the rest constitutes the happiest state of each and aU. Accordingly common good will be the supreme law." This view was further developed by some other theologians of whom the last and most conspicuous was Paley (Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, 1785), whorea.soned that since God wills the happiness of all men it follows that if we would conform our conduct to God's will we must act so as to promote the common happiness; and virtue consists in doing good to all mankind in obedience to the will of God and for the sake of ever- lasting happiness. Moral obligation he conceived to be the pressure of the Divine will upon our wills urging us to right action. More in harmony with the spirit of the later Utilitarians was Hume, the slightest of whose preoccupations was to find any religious source or sanction of morality. In his "Inquiry con- cerning the Principles of Morals" (1751) he carried out an extensive analysis of the various judgments which we pass upon our own character and conduct and on those of others; and from this study drew the conclusion that virtue and personal merit consist in those qualities which are useful to ourselves and others. In the cour.se of his speculat ion he encounters the question which is the irremovable stumbling block in the path of the Utilitarian theorist : How is