“_Fourthly, The Edinburgh Reviewers are of opinion, that ‘it might, with
no small plausibility, be maintained, that in many {65}countries, there
are two classes which, in some decree, answer to this description;’
[viz.] ‘that the poor compose the class which government is established
to restrain; and the people of some property the class to which the
powers of government may without danger be confided.’
“They take great pains, it is true, to say this and not to say it. They
shuffle and creep about, to secure a hole to escape at, if ‘what they
do not assert’ should be found in any degree inconvenient. A man might
waste his life in trying to find out whether the Misses of the Edinburgh
mean to say Yes or No in their political coquetry. But whichever way the
lovely spinsters may decide, it is diametrically opposed to history and
the evidence of facts, that the poor _are_ the class whom there is any
difficulty in restraining. It is not the poor but the rich that have a
propensity to take the property of other people. There is no instance
upon earth of the poor having combined to take away the property of the
rich; and all the instances habitually brought forward in support of it
are gross misrepresentations, founded upon the most necessary acts
of self-defence on the part of the most numerous classes. Such a
misrepresentation is the common one of the Agrarian law; which was
nothing but an attempt on the part of the Roman people to get back
some part of what had been taken from them by undisguised robbery. Such
another is the stock example of the French Revolution, appealed to by
the Edinburgh Review in the actual case. It is utterly untrue that the
French Revolution took place because ‘the poor began to compare their
cottages and salads with the hotels and banquets of the rich;’ it took
place because they were robbed of their cottages and salads to support
the hotels and banquets of their oppressors. It is utterly untrue that
there was either a scramble for property or a general confiscation; the
classes who took part with the foreign invaders lost their property, as
they would have done here, and ought to do everywhere. All these are the
vulgar errors of the man on the lion’s back,--which the lion will set
to rights when he can tell his own story. History is nothing but the
relation of the sufferings of the poor from the rich; except precisely
so far as the numerous classes of the community have contrived to keep
the virtual power in their hands, or in other words, to establish free
governments. If a poor man injures the rich, the law is instantly at his
heels; the injuries of the rich towards the poor are always inflicted by
the law. And to enable the rich {66}to do this to any extent that may be
practicable or prudent, there is clearly one postulate required, which
is, that the rich shall make the law_.”
This passage is alone sufficient to prove that Mr. Bentham has not taken
the trouble to read our article from beginning to end. We are quite sure
that he would not stoop to misrepresent it. And, if he had read it with
any attention, he would have perceived that all this coquetry, this
hesitation, this Yes and No, this saying and not saying, is simply an
exercise of the undeniable right which in controversy belongs to the
defensive side--to the side which proposes to establish nothing. The
affirmative of the issue and the burden of the proof are with Mr. Mill,
not with us. We are not bound, perhaps we are not able, to show that the
form of government which he recommends is bad. It is quite enough if we
can show that he does not prove it to be good. In his proof, among many
other flaws, is this--He says, that if men are not inclined to plunder
each other, government is unnecessary, and that, if men are so inclined,
kings and aristocracies will plunder the people. Now this, we say, is a
fallacy. That some men will plunder their neighbours if they can, is
a sufficient reason for the existence of governments. But it is not
demonstrated that kings and aristocracies will plunder the people,
unless it be true that all men will plunder their neighbours if they
can. Men are placed in very different situations. Some have all the
bodily pleasures that they desire, and many other pleasures besides,
without plundering anybody. Others can scarcely obtain their daily bread
without plundering. It may be true, but surely it is not self-evident,
that the former class is under as strong temptations to plunder as the
latter. Mr. Mill was therefore bound {67}to prove it. That he has not
proved it is one of thirty or forty fatal errors in his argument. It is
not necessary that we should express an opinion or even have an opinion
on the subject. Perhaps we are in a state of perfect scepticism: but
what then? Are we the theory-makers? When we bring before the world a
theory of government, it will be time to call upon us to offer proof
at every step. At present we stand on our undoubted logical right.
We concede nothing: and we deny nothing. We say to the Utilitarian
theorists:--When you prove your doctrine, we will believe it; and, till
you prove it, we will not believe it.
Mr. Bentham has quite misunderstood what we said about the French
Revolution. We never alluded to that event for the purpose of proving
that the poor were inclined to rob the rich. Mr. Mill’s principles of
human nature furnished us with that part of our argument ready-made.
We alluded to the French Revolution for the purpose of illustrating
the effects which general spoliation produces on society, not for the
purpose of showing that general spoliation will take place under a
democracy. We allowed distinctly that, in the peculiar circumstances of
the French monarchy, the Revolution, though accompanied by a great shock
to the institution of property, was a blessing. Surely Mr. Bentham will
not maintain that the injury produced by the deluge of assignats and
by the maximum fell only on the emigrants,--or that there were not many
emigrants who would have staid and lived peaceably under any government
if their persons and property had been secure.
We never said that the French Revolution took place because the poor
began to compare their cottages and salads with the hotels and banquets
of the rich. {68}We were not speaking about _the causes_ of the
Revolution, or thinking about them. This we said, and say, that, if a
democratic government had been established in France, the poor, when
they began to compare their cottages and salads with the hotels
and banquets of the rich, would, on the supposition that Mr. Mill’s
principles are sound, have plundered the rich, and repeated without
provocation all the severities and confiscations which, at the time of
the Revolution, were committed with provocation. We say that Mr. Mill’s
favourite form of government would, if his own views of human nature be
just, make those violent convulsions and transfers of property which now
rarely happen, except, as in the case of the French Revolution, when
the people are maddened by oppression, events of annual or biennial
occurrence. We gave no opinion of our own. We give none now. We say that
this proposition may be proved from Mr. Mill’s own premises, by steps
strictly analogous to those by which he proves monarchy and aristocracy
to be bad forms of government. To say this, is not to say that the
proposition is true. For we hold both Mr. Mill’s premises and his
deduction to be unsound throughout.
Mr. Bentham challenges us to prove from history that the people will
plunder the rich. What does history say to Mr. Mill’s doctrine, that
absolute kings will always plunder their subjects so unmercifully as to
leave nothing but a bare subsistence to any except their own creatures?
If experience is to be the test, Mr. Mill’s theory is unsound. If Mr.
Mill’s reasoning _a priori_ be sound, the people in a democracy will
plunder the rich. Let us use one weight and one measure. Let us not
throw history aside when we are proving a theory, and take it up again
when we have to refute an objection founded on the principles of that
theory. {69}We have not done, however, with Mr. Bentham’s charges
against us.
“_Among other specimens of their ingenuity, they think they embarrass
the subject by asking why, on the principles in question, women should
not have votes as well as men. And why not?