therefore, if the total consequences are not the best possible. They may, for instance, take quite seriously the assertion that justice ought to be done, even though the heavens should fall, as meaning that, however bad the consequences of doing an act of justice might in some circumstances be, yet it always would be our duty to do it. And such a view does necessarily contradict our principle; since, whether it be true or not that an act of injustice ever actually could in this world produce the best possible consequences, it is certainly possible to conceive circumstances in which it would do so. I doubt whether those who believe in the absolute universality of certain moral rules do generally thus distinguish quite clearly between the question whether disobedience to the rule ever could produce the best possible consequences, and the question whether, if it did, then disobedience would be wrong. They would generally be disposed to argue that it never really could. But some persons might perhaps hold that, even if it did, yet disobedience would be wrong. And if this view be quite clearly held, there
