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 well the remaining thirty years of it may be spent, cannot possibly have so much intrinsic value as A’s thirty years. And surely this is an extravagant paradox, however much intrinsic value we may attribute to those final moments of A’s life in which he does his duty at the expense of his life; and however high we put the loss in intrinsic value to B’s life, which arises from the fact that, in this one instance, he failed to do his duty. B may, for instance, repent of this one act and the whole of the remainder of his life may be full of the highest goods; and it seems extravagant to maintain that all the goods there may be in this last thirty years of it cannot possibly be enough to make his life more valuable, intrinsically, than that of A.

I think, therefore, we must conclude that a maximum of true good, for ourselves, is by no means always secured by those actions which are necessary to secure a maximum of true good for the world as a whole; and hence that it is a question of practical importance, whether, in such cases of conflict, it is always a duty, or right, for us to prefer our own good to the general good. And this