If the mode of election was what it ought to be, there would be no more
difficulty in women voting for a representative in Parliament than for
a director at the India House. The world will find out at some time
that the readiest way to secure justice on some points is to be just on
all:--that the whole is easier to accomplish than the part; and that,
whenever the camel is driven through the eye of the needle, it would be
simple folly and debility that would leave a hoof behind._”
Why, says or sings Mr. Bentham, should not women vote? It may seem
uncivil in us to turn a deaf ear to his Arcadian warblings. But we
submit, with great deference, that it is not _our_ business to tell him
why. We fully agree with him that the principle of female suffrage is
not so palpably absurd that a chain of reasoning ought to be pronounced
unsound merely because it leads to female suffrage. We say that every
argument which tells in favour of the universal suffrage of the males
tells equally in favour of female suffrage. Mr. Mill, however, wishes
to see all men vote, but says that it is unnecessary that women
should vote: and for making this distinction _he_ gives as a reason an
assertion which, in the first place, is not true, and which, in the next
place, would, if true, overset his whole theory of human nature; namely,
that the interest of the women is identical with that of the men. We
side with Mr. Bentham, so far at least as this: that, when we join to
drive the camel through the needle, he shall go through hoof and all.
We at present desire to be excused from {70}driving the camel. It is Mr.
Mill who leaves the hoof behind. But we should think it uncourteous to
reproach him in the language which Mr. Bentham, in the exercise of his
paternal authority over the sect, thinks himself entitled to employ.
“_Another of their perverted ingenuities is, that ‘they are rather
inclined to think,’ that it would, on the whole, be for the interest of
the majority to plunder the rich; and if so, the Utilitarians will say
that the rich ought to be plundered. On which it is sufficient to reply,
that for the majority to plunder the rich would amount to a declaration
that nobody should be rich; which, as all men wish to be rich, would
involve a suicide of hope. And as nobody has shown a fragment of reason
why such a proceeding should be for the general happiness, it does
not follow that the ‘Utilitarians’ would recommend it. The Edinburgh
Reviewers have a waiting gentlewoman’s ideas of ‘Utilitarianism.’ It
is unsupported by anything but the pitiable ‘We are rather inclined to
think’--and is utterly contradicted by the whole course of history and
human experience besides,--that there is either danger or possibility of
such a consummation as the majority agreeing on the plunder of the rich.
There have been instances in human memory, of their agreeing to plunder
rich oppressors, rich traitors, rich enemies,--but the rich simpliciter
never. It is as true now as in the days of Harrington, that ‘a people
never will, nor ever can, never did, nor ever shall, take up arms for
levelling.’ All the commotions in the world have been for something
else; and ‘levelling’ is brought forward as the blind to conceal what
the other was_.”
We say, again and again, that we are on the defensive. We do not think
it necessary to prove that a quack medicine is poison. Let the vendor
prove it to be sanative. We do not pretend to show that universal
suffrage is an evil. Let its advocates show it to be a good. Mr. Mill
tells us that, if power be given for short terms to representatives
elected by all the males of mature age, it will then be for the interest
of those {71}representatives to promote the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. To prove this, it is necessary that he should prove
three propositions: first, that the interest of such a representative
body will be identical with the interest of the constituent body;
secondly, that the interest of the constituent body will be identical
with that of the community; thirdly, that the interest of one generation
of a community is identical with that of all succeeding generations. The
two first propositions Mr. Mill attempts to prove, and fails. The last
he does not even attempt to prove. We therefore refuse our assent to his
conclusions. Is this unreasonable?
We never even dreamed, what Mr. Bentham conceives us to have maintained,
that it could be for the greatest happiness of _mankind_ to plunder the
rich. But we are “rather inclined to think,” though doubtingly and with
a disposition to yield to conviction, that it may be for the pecuniary
interest of the majority of a single generation in a thickly-peopled
country to plunder the rich. Why we are inclined to think so we will
explain, whenever we send a theory of government to an Encyclopaedia.
At present we are bound to say only that we think so, and shall think so
till somebody shows us a reason for thinking otherwise.
Mr. Bentham’s answer to us is simple assertion. He must not think that
we mean any discourtesy by meeting it with a simple denial. The fact is,
that almost all the governments that have ever existed in the civilised
world have been, in part at least, monarchical and aristocratical. The
first government constituted on principles approaching to those which
the Utilitarians hold was, we think, that of the United States. That the
poor have never combined to plunder the rich in {72}the governments of
the old world, no more proves that they might not combine to plunder
the rich under a system of universal suffrage, than the fact that
the English kings of the House of Brunswick have not been Neros and
Domitians proves that sovereigns may safely be intrusted with absolute
power. Of what the people would do in a state of perfect sovereignty we
can judge only by indications, which, though rarely of much moment in
themselves, and though always suppressed with little difficulty, are yet
of great significance, and resemble those by which our domestic animals
sometimes remind us that they are of kin with the fiercest monsters of
the forest. It would not be wise to reason from the behaviour of a dog
crouching under the lash, which is the case of the Italian people,
or from the behaviour of a dog pampered with the best morsels of a
plentiful kitchen, which is the case of the people of America, to the
behaviour of a wolf, which is nothing but a dog run wild, after a week’s
fast among the snows of the Pyrenees. No commotion, says Mr. Bentham,
was ever really produced by the wish of levelling: the wish has been put
forward as a blind; but something else has been the real object. Grant
all this. But why has levelling been put forward as a blind in times
of commotion to conceal the real objects of the agitators? Is it with
declarations which involve “a suicide of hope” that men attempt to
allure others? Was famine, pestilence, slavery, ever held out to attract
the people? If levelling has been made a pretence for disturbances, the
argument against Mr. Bentham’s doctrine is as strong as if it had been
the real object of disturbances.
But the great objection which Mr. Bentham makes to our review, still
remains to be noticed:--{73}"The pith of the charge against the
author of the Essays is, that he has written ‘an elaborate Treatise
on Government,’ and ‘deduced the whole science from the assumption of
certain propensities of human nature.’ Now, in the name of Sir Richard
Birnie and all saints, from what else should it be deduced? What did
ever anybody imagine to be the end, object, and design of government as
it ought to be but the same operation, on an extended scale, which that
meritorious chief magistrate conducts on a limited one at Bow-street; to
wit, the preventing one man from injuring another? Imagine, then, that
the Whiggery of Bow-street were to rise up against the proposition that
their science was to be deduced from ‘certain propensities of human
nature,’ and thereon were to ratiocinate as follows:--
“‘_How then are we to arrive at just conclusions on a subject so
‘important to the happiness of mankind? Surely by that method, which,
in every experimental science to which it has been applied, has signally
increased the power and knowledge of our species,--by that method for
which our new philosopher! would substitute quibbles scarcely worthy
of the barbarous respondents and opponents of the middle ages,--by the
method of induction,--by observing the present state of the world,--by
assiduously studying the history of past ages,--by sifting the evidence
of facts,--by carefully combining and contrasting those which
are authentic,--by generalising with judgment and diffidence,--by
perpetually bringing the theory which we have constructed to the test
of new facts,--by correcting, or altogether abandoning it, according
as those new facts prove it to be partially or fundamentally unsound.
Proceeding thus,--patiently, diligently, candidly, we may hope to form
a system as far inferior in pretension to that which we have
been examining, and as far superior to it in real utility, as the
prescriptions of a great physician, varying with every stage of every
malady, and with the constitution of every patient, to the pill of the
advertising quack, which is to cure all human beings, in all climates,
of all diseases.’”
“Fancy now,--only fancy,--the delivery of these wise words at
Bow-street; and think how speedily the practical catchpolls would
reply, that all this might be very fine, but as far as they had studied
history, the naked story was, after all, that numbers of men had a
propensity to thieving, and their business was to catch them; that they,
too, had been sifters of facts; and, to say the truth, their simple
opinion was, that their brethren of the red {74}waistcoat--though
they should be sorry to think ill of any man--had somehow contracted a
leaning to the other side, and were more bent on puzzling the case for
the benefit of the defendants, than on doing the duty of good officers
and true. Such would, beyond all doubt, be the sentence passed on such
trimmers in the microcosm of Bow-street. It might not absolutely follow
that they were in a plot to rob the goldsmiths’ shops, or to set fire
to the House of Commons; but it would be quite clear that they had got
a feeling,--that they were in process of siding with the thieves,--and
that it was not to them that any man must look who was anxious that
pantries should be safe_.”
This is all very witty; but it does not touch us. On the present
occasion, we cannot but flatter ourselves that we bear a much greater
resemblance to a practical catchpoll than either Mr. Mill or Mr.
Bentham. It would, to be sure, be very absurd in a magistrate,
discussing the arrangements of a police-office, to spout ill the style
either of our article or Mr. Bentham’s; but, in substance, he would
proceed, if he were a man of sense, exactly as _we_ recommend. He would,
on being appointed to provide for the security of property in a town,
study attentively the state of the town. He would learn at what places,
at what times, and under what circumstances, theft and outrage were most
frequent. Are the streets, he would ask, most infested with thieves at
sunset or at midnight? Are there any public places of resort which give
peculiar facilities to pickpockets? Are there any districts completely
inhabited by a lawless population? Which are the flash-houses, and which
the shops of receivers? Having made himself master of the facts he would
act accordingly. A strong detachment of officers might be necessary for
Petticoat Lane; another for the pit entrance of Covent Garden Theatre.
Grosvenor Square and Hamilton Place would require little or no
protection. {75}Exactly thus should we reason about government. Lombardy
is oppressed by tyrants; and constitutional checks, such as may produce
security to the people, are required. It is, so to speak, one of the
resorts of thieves; and there is great need of police-officers. Denmark
resembles one of those respectable streets in which it is scarcely
necessary to station a catchpoll, because the inhabitants would at once
join to seize a thief. Yet, even in such a street, we should wish to see
an officer appear now and then, as his occasional superintendence would
render the security more complete. And even Denmark, we think, would be
better off under a constitutional form of government.
Mr. Mill proceeds like a director of police, who, without asking a
single question about the state of his district, should give his orders
thus:--“My maxim is, that every man will take what he can. Every man in
London would be a thief, but for the thief-takers. This is an undeniable
principle of human nature. Some of my predecessors have wasted
their time in inquiring about particular pawnbrokers, and particular
alehouses. Experience is altogether divided. Of people placed in exactly
the same situation, I see that one steals, and that another would sooner
burn his hand off. _Therefore_ I trust to the laws of human nature
alone, and pronounce all men thieves alike. Let every body, high and
low, be watched. Let Townsend take particular care that the Duke of
Wellington does not steal the silk handkerchief of the lord in waiting
at the levee. A person has lost a watch. Go to Lord Fitz-william and
search him for it; he is as great a receiver of stolen goods as Ikey
Solomons himself. Don’t tell me about his rank, and character, and
fortune. He is a man; and a man does not change his nature {76}when he
is called a lord. (1) Either men will steal or they will not steal. If
they will not, why do I sit here? If they will, his lordship must be a
thief.” The Whiggery of Bow Street would perhaps rise up against this
wisdom. Would Mr. Bentham think that the Whiggery of Bow Street was In
the wrong?
We blamed Mr. Mill for deducing his theory of government from the
principles of human nature. “In the name of Sir Richard Birnie and all
saints,” cries Mr. Bentham, “from what else should it be deduced?”
In spite of this solemn adjuration, we shall venture to answer Mr.
Bentham’s question by another. How does he arrive at those principles of
human nature from which he proposes to deduce the science of government?
We think that we may venture to put an answer into his mouth; for in
truth there is but one possible answer. He will say--By experience.
But what is the extent of this experience? Is it an experience which
includes experience of the conduct of men intrusted with the powers
of government; or is it exclusive of that experience? If it includes
experience of the manner in which men act when intrusted with the powers
of government, then those principles of human nature from which the
science of government is to be deduced can only be known after going
through that inductive process by which we propose to arrive at the
science of government. Our knowledge of human nature, instead of being
prior in order to our knowledge
(1) “If Government is founded upon this, as a law of human
nature, that a man, if able, will take from others anything
which they have and he desires, it is sufficiently evident
that when a man is called a king, he does not change his
nature: so that, when he has power to take what he pleases,
he will take what he pleases. To suppose that he will not,
is to affirm that government is unnecessary, and that human
beings will abstain from injuring one another of their own
accord.”--Mill. _on Government._
{77} of the science of government, will be posterior to it. And it would
be correct to say, that by means of the science of government, and of
other kindred sciences--the science of education, for example, which
falls under exactly the same principle--we arrive at the science of
human nature.
If, on the other hand, we are to deduce the theory of government from
principles of human nature, in arriving at which principles we have not
taken into the account the manner in which men act when invested with
the powers of government, then those principles must be defective.
They have not been formed by a sufficiently copious induction. We are
reasoning, from what a man does in one situation, to what he will do in
another. Sometimes we may be quite justified in reasoning thus. When we
have no means of acquiring information about the particular case before
us, we are compelled to resort to cases which bear some resemblance to
it. But the most satisfactory course is to obtain information about
the particular case; and, whenever this can be obtained, it ought to be
obtained. When first the yellow fever broke out, a physician might
be justified in treating it as he had been accustomed to treat those
complaints which, on the whole, had the most symptoms in common with it.
But what should we think of a physician who should now tell us that
he deduced his treatment of yellow fever from the general theory of
pathology? Surely we should ask him, Whether, in constructing his theory
of pathology, he had or had not taken into the account the facts which
had been ascertained respecting the yellow fever? If he had, then it
would be more correct to say that he had arrived at the principles
of pathology partly by his experience of cases of yellow fever
than {78}that he had deduced his treatment of yellow fever from the
principles of pathology. If he had not, he should not prescribe for us.
If we had the yellow fever, we should prefer a man who had never
treated any cases but cases of yellow fever to a man who had walked the
hospitals of London and Paris for years, but who knew nothing of our
particular disease.
Let Lord Bacon speak for us: “Inductionem cense-mus cam esse
demonstrandi formam, quæ sensum tue-tur, et naturam promit, et operibus
imminet, ac fere immiscetur. Itaque ordo quoque demonstrandi
plane invertitur. Adhuc enim res ita geri consuevit, ut a sensu et
particularibus primo loco ad maxime generalia advoletur, tanquam ad
polos fixos, circa quos disputationes vertantur; ab illis cætera, per
media, deriventur; via certe compendiariâ, sed præcipiti, et ad naturam
im-perviâ, ad disputationes proclivi et accommodatâ. At, secundum nos,
axiomata continenter et gradatim exci-. tantur, ut non, nisi postremo
loco, ad maxime generalia veniatur.” Can any words more exactly describe
the political reasonings of Mr. Mill than those in which Lord Bacon thus
describes the logomachies of the schoolmen? Mr. Mill springs at once
to a general principle of the widest extent, and from that general
principle deduces syllogistically every thing which is included in
it. We say with Bacon--“non, nisi postremo loco, ad maxime generalia
veniatur.” In the present inquiry, the science of human nature is the
“maxime generale.” To this the Utilitarian rushes at once, and from this
he deduces a hundred sciences. But the true philosopher, the inductive
reasoner, travels up to it slowly, through those hundred sciences, of
which the science of government is one.
As we have lying before us that incomparable volume, {79}the noblest
and most useful of all the works of the human reason, the Novum Organum,
we will transcribe a few lines, in which the Utilitarian philosophy is
portrayed to the life.
_“Syllogismus act principia scientiarum non adhibetur, ad media axiomata
frustra adhibetur, cum sit subtilitati naturæ longe impar. Assensum
itaque constringit, non res. Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat,
propositiones ex verbis, verba notionnm tesseræ sunt. Itaque si notiones
ipsæ, id quod basis rei est, confusæ sint, et temerè a rebus abstraetæ,
nihil in iis quæ superstruuntur est firmitudinis. Itaque spes est una
in Induetione vera. In notionibus nil sani est, nee in Logieis nee in
physicis. Non substantia, non qualitas, agere, pati, ipsum esse, bonne
notiones sunt; multo minus grave, leve, densum, tenue, humidum, siecum,
generatio, corruptio, attrahere, fugare, elementum, materia, forma, et
id genus, sed omnes phantastieæ et male terminatæ_.”
Substitute for the “substantia,” the “generatio,” the “corruptio,”
the “elementum,” the “materia” of the old schoolmen, Mr. Mill’s pain,
pleasure, interest, power, objects of desire,--and the words of Bacon
will seem to suit the current year as well as the beginning of the
seventeenth century.
We have now gone through the objections that Mr. Bentham makes to our
article: and we submit ourselves on all the charges to the judgment of
the public.
The rest of Mr. Bentham’s article consists of an exposition of the
Utilitarian principle, or, as he decrees that it shall be called, the
“greatest happiness principle.” He seems to think that we have been
assailing it. We never said a syllable against it. We spoke slightingly
of the Utilitarian sect, as we thought of them, and think of them; but
it was not for holding this doctrine that we blamed them. In attacking
them we no more meant to attack the “greatest happiness” {80}principle
than when we say that Mahometanism is a false religion we mean to deny
the unity of God, which is the first article of the Mahometan creed;--no
more than Mr. Bentham, when he sneers at the Whigs, means to blame
them for denying the divine right of kings. We reasoned throughout our
article on the supposition that the end of government was to produce the
greatest happiness to mankind.
Mr. Bentham gives an account of the manner In which he arrived at the
discovery of the “greatest happiness principle.” He then proceeds to
describe the effects which, as he conceives, that discovery is producing
in language so rhetorical and ardent that, if it had been written by any
other person, a genuine Utilitarian would certainly have thrown down the
book in disgust.
“_The only rivals of any note to the new principle which were brought
forward, were those known by the names of the ‘moral sense,’ and the
‘original contract.’ The new principle superseded the first of these, by
presenting it with a guide for its decisions; and the other, by making
it unnecessary to resort to a remote and imaginary contract for what was
clearly the business of every man and every hour. Throughout the whole
horizon of morals and of politics, the consequences were glorious and
vast. It might be said without danger of exaggeration, that they who
sat in darkness had seen a great light. The mists in which mankind
had jousted against each other were swept away, as when the sun of
astronomical science arose in the full development of the principle of
gravitation. If the object of legislation was the greatest happiness,
morality was the promotion of the same end by the conduct of the
individual; and by analogy, the happiness of the world was the morality
of nations.
“....All the sublime obscurities, which had haunted the mind of man from
the first formation of society,--the phantoms whose steps had been on
earth, and their heads among the clouds,--marshalled themselves at the
sound of this new principle of connection and of union, and stood a
regulated band, where all {81}was order, symmetry, and force. What men
had struggled for and bled, while they saw it but as through a glass
darkly, was made the object of substantial knowledge and lively
apprehension. The bones of sages and of patriots stirred within their
tombs, that what they dimly saw and followed had become the world’s
common heritage. And the great result was wrought by no supernatural
means, nor produced by any unparallelable concatenation of events. It
was foretold by no oracles, and ushered by no portents; but was brought
about by the quiet and reiterated exercise of God’s first gift of common
sense_.”
Mr. Bentham’s discovery does not, as we think we shall be able to show,
approach in importance to that of gravitation, to which he compares it.
At all events, Mr. Bentham seems to us to act much as Sir Isaac Newton
would have done if he had gone about boasting that he was the first
person who taught bricklayers not to jump off scaffolds and break their
legs.
Does Mr. Bentham profess to hold out any new motive which may induce
men to promote the happiness of the species to which they belong? Not
at all. He distinctly admits that, if he is asked why government should
attempt to produce the greatest possible happiness, he can give no
answer.
“_The real answer,” says he, “appeared to be, that men at large ought
not to allow a government to afflict them with move evil or less good
than they can help. What a government ought to do is a mysterious and
searching question, which those may answer who know what it means; but
what other men ought to do is a question of no mystery at all. The
word ought, if it means anything, must have reference to some kind of
interest or motives; and what interest a government has in doing right,
when it happens to be interested in doing wrong, is a question for
the schoolmen. The fact appears to be, that ought is not predicable of
governments. The question is not why governments are bound not to do
this or that, but why other men should let them if they can help it. The
point is not to determine why the lion should {82}not eat sheep, but why
men should not eat their own mutton if they can_.”
The principle of Mr. Bentham, if we understand it, is this, that
mankind ought to act so as to produce their greatest happiness. The word
_ought_, he tells us, has no meaning, unless it be used with reference
to some interest. But the interest of a man is synonymous with his
greatest happiness:--and therefore to say that a man ought to do a
thing, is to say that it is for his greatest happiness to do it. And
to say that mankind _ought_ to act so as to produce their greatest
happiness, is to say that the greatest happiness is the greatest
happiness--and this is all!
Does Mr. Bentham’s principle tend to make any man wish for anything for
which he would not have wished, or do any thing which he would not have
done, if the principle had never been heard of? If not, it is an
utterly useless principle. Now, every man pursues his own happiness or
interest--call it which you will. If his happiness coincides with the
happiness of the species, then, whether he ever heard of the “greatest
happiness principle” or not, he will, to the best of his knowledge and
ability, attempt to produce the greatest happiness of the species.
But, if what he thinks his happiness be inconsistent with the greatest
happiness of mankind, will this new principle convert him to another
frame of mind? Mr. Bentham himself allows, as we have seen, that he can
give no reason why a man should promote the greatest happiness of others
if their greatest happiness be inconsistent with what he thinks his own.
We should very much like to know how the Utilitarian principle would
run when reduced to one plain imperative proposition? Will it run
thus--pursue {83}your own happiness? This is superfluous. Every man
pursues it, according to his light, and always has pursued it, and
always must pursue it. To say that a man has done any thing, is to say
that he thought it for his happiness to do it. Will the principle run
thus--pursue the greatest happiness of mankind, whether it be your own
greatest happiness or not? This is absurd and impossible; and Bentham
himself allows it to be so. But, if the principle be not stated in one
of these two ways, we cannot imagine how it is to be stated at all.
Stated in one of these ways, it is an identical proposition,--true,
but utterly barren of consequences. Stated in the other way, it is
a contradiction in terms. Mr. Bentham has distinctly declined the
absurdity. Are we then to suppose that he adopts the truism?
There are thus, it seems, two great truths which the Utilitarian
philosophy is to communicate to mankind--two truths which are to produce
a revolution in morals, in laws, in governments, in literature, in the
whole system of life. The first of these is speculative; the second is
practical. The speculative truth is, that the greatest happiness is the
greatest happiness. The practical rule is very simple; for it imports
merely that men should never omit, when they wish for any thing, to wish
for it, or when they do any thing, to do it! It is a great comfort to us
to think that we readily assented to the former of these great doctrines
as soon as it was stated to us; and that we have long endeavoured,
as far as human frailty would permit, to conform to the latter in our
practice. We are, however, inclined to suspect that the calamities of
the human race have been owing, less to their not knowing that happiness
was happiness, than to their not knowing how to obtain it--less to their
neglecting to do what they did, than to their not {84}being able to do
what they wished, or not wishing to do what they ought.
Thus frivolous, thus useless is this philosophy,--“controversianun
ferax, operiun effoeta, ad garriendum prompta, ad generandum invalida.”
(1) The humble mechanic who discovers some slight improvement in
the construction of safety lamps or steam-vessels does more for the
happiness of mankind than the “magnificent principle,” as Mr. Bentham
calls it, will do in ten thousand years. The mechanic teaches us how
we may in a small degree be better off than we were. The Utilitarian
advises us with great pomp to be as well off as we can.
The doctrine of a moral sense may be very unphilosophical; but we do
not think that it can be proved to be pernicious. Men did not entertain
certain desires and aversions because they believed in a moral sense,
but they gave the name of moral sense to a feeling which they found in
their minds, however it came there. If they had given it no name at all
it would still have influenced their actions; and it will not be very
easy to demonstrate that it has influenced their actions the more
because they have called it the moral sense. The theory of the original
contract is a fiction, and a very absurd fiction; but in practice it
meant, what the “greatest happiness principle,” if ever it becomes a
watchword of political warfare, will mean--that is to say, whatever
served the turn of those who used it. Both the one expression and the
other sound very well in debating clubs; but in the real conflicts of
life our passions and interests bid them stand aside and know their
place. The “greatest happiness principle” has always been latent under
the words, social contract, justice,
(1) Bacon, Novum Organum.
{85}benevolence, patriotism, liberty, and so forth, just as for as it
was for the happiness, real or imagined, of those who used these words
to promote the greatest happiness of mankind. And of this we may be
sure, that the words “greatest happiness” will never, in any man’s
mouth, mean more than the greatest happiness of others which is
consistent with what he thinks his own. The project of mending a bad
world by teaching people to give new names to old things reminds us of
Walter Shandy’s scheme for compensating the loss of his son’s nose by
christening him Trismegistus.
What society wants is a new motive--not a new cant. If Mr. Bentham can
find out any argument yet undiscovered which may induce men to pursue
the general happiness, he will indeed be a great benefactor to our
species. But those whose happiness is identical with the general
happiness are even now promoting the general happiness to the very best
of their power and knowledge: and Mr. Bentham himself confesses that he
has no means of persuading those whose happiness is not identical with
the general happiness to act upon his principle. Is not this, then,
darkening counsel by words without knowledge? If the only fruit of the
“magnificent principle” is to be, that the oppressors and pilferers of
the next generation are to talk of seeking the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, just as the same class of men have talked in our time
of seeking to uphold the Protestant constitution--just as they talked
under Anne of seeking the good of the Church, and under Cromwell of
seeking the Lord--where is the gain? Is not every great question already
enveloped in a sufficiently dark cloud of unmeaning words? Is it so
difficult for a man to cant some one or more of the good old English
cants which his {86}father and grandfather canted before him, that he
must learn, in the schools of the Utilitarians, a new sleight of tongue,
to make fools clap and wise men sneer? Let our countrymen keep their
eyes on the neophytes of this sect, and see whether we turn out to be
mistaken in the prediction which we now hazard. It will before long be
found, we prophesy, that, as the corruption of a dunce is the generation
of an Utilitarian, so is the corruption of an Utilitarian the generation
of a jobber.
The most elevated station that the “greatest happiness principle” is
ever likely to attain is this, that it may be a fashionable phrase among
newspaper writers and members of parliament--that it may succeed to
the dignity which has been enjoyed by the “original contract,” by the
“constitution of 1688,” and other expressions of the same kind. We do
not apprehend that it is a less flexible cant than those which have
preceded it, or that it will less easily furnish a pretext for any
design for which a pretext may be required. The “original contract”
meant in the Convention Parliament the co-ordinate authority of the
Three Estates. If there were to be a radical insurrection to-morrow, the
“original contract” would stand just as well for annual parliaments
and universal suffrage. The “Glorious Constitution,” again, has meant
everything in turn: the Habeas Corpus Act, the Suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act, the Test Act, the Repeal of the Test Act. There has not
been for many years a single important measure which has not been
unconstitutional with its opponents, and which its supporters have not
maintained to be agreeable to the true spirit of the constitution. Is it
easier to ascertain what is for the greatest happiness of the human
race than what is the {87}constitution of England? If not, the greatest
happiness principle will be what the “principles of the constitution”
are, a thing to be appealed to by everybody, and understood by everybody
in the sense which suits him best. It will mean cheap bread, dear
bread, free trade, protecting duties, annual parliaments, septennial
parliaments, universal suffrage, Old Sarum, trial by jury, martial
law--everything, in short, good, bad, or indifferent, of which any
person, from rapacity or from benevolence, chooses to undertake the
defence. It will mean six-and-eightpence with the attorney, tithes at
the rectory, and game-laws at the manor-house. The Statute of Uses, in
appearance the most sweeping legislative reform in our history, was said
to have produced no other effect than that of adding three words to a
conveyance. The universal admission of Mr. Bentham’s great principle
would, as far as we can see, produce no other effect than that those
orators who, while waiting for a meaning, gain time (like bankers paying
in sixpences during a run) by uttering words that mean nothing would
substitute “the greatest happiness,” or rather, as the longer phrase,
the “greatest happiness of the greatest number,” for “under existing
circumstances,”--“now that I am on my legs,”--and “Mr. Speaker, I, for
one, am free to say.” In fact, principles of this sort resemble those
forms which are sold by law-stationers, with blanks for the names of
parties, and for the special circumstances of every case--mere customary
headings and conclusions, which are equally at the command of the most
honest and of the most unrighteous claimant. It is on the filling up
that everything depends.
The “greatest happiness principle” of Mr. Bentham is included in the
Christian morality; and, to our {88}thinking, it is there exhibited in
an infinitely more sound and philosophical form than in the Utilitarian
speculations. For in the New Testament it is neither an identical
proposition, nor a contradiction in terms; and, as laid down by Mr.
Bentham, it must be either the one or the other. “Do as you would be
done by: Love your neighbour as yourself:” these are the precepts of
Jesus Christ. Understood in an enlarged sense, these precepts are, in
fact, a direction to every man to promote the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. But this direction would be utterly unmeaning, as it
actually is in Mr. Bentham’s philosophy, unless it were accompanied by
a sanction. In the Christian scheme, accordingly, it is accompanied by
a sanction of immense force. To a man whose greatest happiness in this
world is inconsistent with the greatest happiness of the greatest number
is held out the prospect of an infinite happiness hereafter, from which
he excludes himself by wronging his fellow-creatures here.
This is practical philosophy, as practical as that on which penal
legislation is founded. A man is told to do something which otherwise
he would not do, and is furnished with a new motive for doing it. Mr.
Bentham has no new motive to furnish his disciples with. He has talents
sufficient to effect any thing that can be effected. But to induce
men to act without an inducement is too much, even for him. He should
reflect that the whole vast world of morals cannot be moved unless
the mover can obtain some stand for his engines beyond it. He acts as
Archimedes would have done, if he had attempted to move the earth by a
lever fixed on the earth. The action and reaction neutralise each other.
The artist labours, and the world remains at rest. Mr. Bentham can only
tell us to do something {89}which we have always been doing, and should
still have continued to do, if we had never heard of the “greatest
happiness principle”--or else to do something which we have no
conceivable motive for doing, and therefore shall not do. Mr. Bentham’s
principle is at best no more than the golden rule of the Gospel without
its sanction. Whatever evils, therefore, have existed in societies in
which the authority of the Gospel is recognised may, _a fortiori_, as it
appears to us, exist in societies in which the Utilitarian principle is
recognised. We do not apprehend that it is more difficult for a tyrant
or a persecutor to persuade himself and others that in putting to death
those who oppose his power or differ from his opinions he is pursuing
“the greatest happiness,” than that he is doing as he would be done by.
But religion gives him a motive for doing as he would be done by: and
Mr. Bentham furnishes him no motive to induce him to promote the general
happiness. If, on the other hand, Mr. Bentham’s principle mean only
that every man should pursue his own greatest happiness, he merely
asserts what everybody knows, and recommends what everybody does.
It is not upon this “greatest happiness principle” that the fame of
Mr. Bentham will rest. He has not taught people to pursue their own
happiness; for that they always did. He has not taught them to promote
the happiness of others, at the expense of their own; for that they will
not and cannot do. But he has taught them _how_, in some most important
points, to promote their own happiness; and, if his school had emulated
him as successfully in this respect as in the trick of passing off
truisms for discoveries, the name of Benthamite would have been no word
for the scoffer. But few of those who consider themselves as in a more
especial {90}manner his followers have anything in common with him but
his faults. The whole science of’ Jurisprudence is his. He has done much
for political economy; but we are not aware that in either department
any improvement has been made by members of his sect. He discovered
truths; all that _they_ have done has been to make those truths
unpopular. He investigated the philosophy of law; he could teach them
only to snarl at lawyers.
We entertain no apprehensions of danger to the institutions of this
country from the Utilitarians. Our fears are of a different kind. We
dread the odium and discredit of their alliance. We wish to see a broad
and clear line drawn between the judicious friends of practical reform
and a sect which, having derived all its influence from the countenance
which they have imprudently bestowed upon it, hates them with the deadly
hatred of ingratitude. There is not, and we firmly believe that there
never was, in this country a party so unpopular. They have already made
the science of political economy--a science of vast importance to
the welfare of nations--an object of disgust to the majority of the
community. The question of parliamentary reform will share the same fate
if once an association be formed in the public mind between Reform and
Utilitarianism.
We bear no enmity to any member of the sect; and for Mr. Bentham we
entertain very high admiration. We know that among his followers there
are some well-intentioned men, and some men of talents: but we cannot
say that we think the logic on which they pride themselves likely to
improve their heads, or the scheme of morality which they have adopted
likely to improve their hearts. Their theory of morals, however,{91}
well deserves an article to itself; and perhaps, on some future
occasion, we may discuss it more fully than time and space at present
allow.
The preceding article was written, and was actually in types, when a
letter from Mr. Bentham appeared in the newspapers, importing that,
“though he had furnished the Westminster Review with some _memoranda_
respecting ‘the greatest happiness principle,’ he had nothing to do with
the remarks on our former article.” We are truly happy to find that this
illustrious man had so small a share in a performance which, for his
sake, we have treated with far greater lenity than it deserved.
The mistake, however, does not in the least affect any part of our
arguments; and we have therefore thought it unnecessary to cancel or
cast anew any of the foregoing pages. Indeed, we are not sorry that the
world should see how respectfully we were disposed to treat a great man,
even when we considered him as the author of a very weak and very unfair
attack on ourselves. We wish, however, to intimate to the actual writer
of that attack that our civilities were intended for the author of the
“Preuves Judiciaires,” and the “Defence of Usury”--and not for him. We
cannot conclude, indeed, without expressing a wish--though we fear it
has but little chance of reaching Mr. Bentham--that he would endeavour
to find better editors for his compositions. If M. Dumont had not been a
_rédacteur_ of a different description from some of his successors, Mr.
Bentham would never have attained the distinction of even giving his
name to a sect.