(_Edinburgh, Review_, October 1829.)
We {92}have long been of opinion that the Utilitarians have owed all
their influence to a mere delusion--that, while professing to have
submitted their minds to an intellectual discipline of peculiar
severity, to have discarded all sentimentality, and to have acquired
consummate skill in the art of reasoning, they are decidedly inferior
to the mass of educated men in the very qualities in which they conceive
themselves to excel. They have undoubtedly freed themselves from the
dominion of some absurd notions. But their struggle for intellectual
emancipation has ended, as injudicious and violent struggles for
political emancipation too often end, in a mere change of tyrants.
Indeed, we are not sure that we do not prefer the venerable nonsense
which holds prescriptive sway over the ultra-Tory to the upstart dynasty
of prejudices and sophisms by which the revolutionists of the moral
world have suffered themselves to be enslaved.
The Utilitarians have sometimes been abused as intolerant, arrogant,
irreligious,--as enemies of literature, of the fine arts, and of the
domestic charities.
(1) Westminster Review, (XXII. Art. 16,) on the Strictures
of the Edinburgh Review (XCVIII. Art. 1) on the Utilitarian
Theory of Government, and the “Greatest Happiness
Principle.”
{93}They have been reviled for some things of which they were guilty,
and for some of which they were innocent. But scarcely anybody seems
to have perceived that almost all their peculiar faults arise from the
utter want both of comprehensiveness and of precision in their mode of
reasoning. We have, for some time past, been convinced that this was
really the case; and that, whenever then philosophy should be boldly
and unsparingly scrutinised, the world would see that it had been under
a mistake respecting them.
We have made the experiment; and it has succeeded far beyond our most
sanguine expectations. A chosen champion of the School has come forth
against us. A specimen of his logical abilities now lies before us;
and we pledge ourselves to show that no prebendary at an anti-Catholic
meeting, no true-blue baronet after the third bottle at a Pitt Club,
ever displayed such utter incapacity of comprehending or answering an
argument as appears in the speculations of this Utilitarian apostle;
that he does not understand our meaning, or Mr. Mill’s meaning, or Mr.
Bentham’s meaning, or his own meaning; and that the various parts of his
system--if the name of system can be so misapplied--directly contradict
each other.
Having shown this, we intend to leave him in undisputed possession of
whatever advantage he may derive from the last word. We propose only to
convince the public that there is nothing in the far-famed logic of the
Utilitarians of which any plain man has reason to be afraid; that this
logic will impose on no man who dares to look it in the face.
The Westminster Reviewer begins by charging us with having
misrepresented an important part of Mr. Mill’s argument. {94}”_The first
extract given by the Edinburgh Reviewers from the essay was an insulated
passage, purposely despoiled of what had preceded and what followed.
The author had been observing, that ‘some profound and benevolent
investigators of human affairs had adopted the conclusion that, of all
the possible forms of government, absolute monarchy is the best.’ This
is what the reviewers have omitted at the beginning. He then adds, as
in the extract, that ‘Experience, if we look only at the outside of the
facts, appears to be divided on this subject;’ there are Caligulas in
one place, and kings of Denmark in another. ‘As the surface of history
affords, therefore, no certain principle of decision, we must go beyond
the surface, and penetrate to the springs within.’ This is what the
reviewers have omitted at the end_.”
It is perfectly true that our quotation from Mr. Mill’s essay was, like
most other quotations, preceded and followed by something which we did
not quote. But, if the Westminster Reviewer means to say that either
what preceded or what followed would, if quoted, have shown that we put
a wrong interpretation on the passage which was extracted, he does not
understand Mr. Mill rightly.
Mr. Mill undoubtedly says that, “as the surface of history affords
no certain principle of decision, we must go beyond the surface, and
penetrate to the springs within.” But these expressions will admit of
several interpretations. In what sense, then, does Mr. Mill use them?
If he means that we ought to inspect the facts with close attention,
he means what is rational. But, if he means that we ought to leave the
facts, with all their apparent inconsistencies, unexplained--to lay down
a general principle of the widest extent, and to deduce doctrines from
that principle by syllogistic argument, without pausing to consider
whether those doctrines be or be not consistent with the facts,--then he
means what is irrational; and this is clearly what he does mean: for he
immediately begins, without offering {95}the least explanation of the
contradictory appearances which he has himself described, to go beyond
the surface in the following manner:--“That one human being will
desire to render the person and property of another subservient to his
pleasures, notwithstanding the pain or loss of pleasure which it may
occasion to that other individual, is the foundation of government..
The desire of the object implies the desire of the power necessary to
accomplish the object.” And thus he proceeds to deduce consequences
directly inconsistent with what he has himself stated respecting the
situation of the Danish people.
If we assume that the object of government is the preservation of the
persons and property of men, then we must hold that, wherever that
object is attained, there the principle of good government exists. If
that object be attained both in Denmark and in the United States
of America, then that which makes government good must exist, under
whatever disguise of title or name, both in Denmark and in the United
States. If men lived in fear for their lives and their possessions under
Nero and under the National Convention, it follows that the causes from
which misgovernment proceeds existed both in the despotism of Rome and
in the democracy of France. What, then, is that which, being found
in Denmark and in the United States, and not being found in the Roman
Empire or under the administration of Robespierre, renders governments,
widely differing in their external form, practically good? Be it what it
may, it certainly is not that which Mr. Mill proves _a priori_ that it
must be,--a democratic representative assembly. For the Danes have no
such assembly.
The latent principle of good government ought to {96}be tracked, as it
appears to us, in the same manner in which Lord Bacon proposed to track
the principle of Heat. Make as large a list as possible, said that great
man, of those bodies in which, however widely they differ from each
other in appearance, we perceive heat; and as large a list as possible
of those which, while they bear a general resemblance to hot bodies, are
nevertheless not hot. Observe the different degrees of heat in different
hot bodies; and then, if there be something which is found in all hot
bodies, and of which the increase or diminution is always accompanied
by an increase or diminution of heat, we may hope that we have really
discovered the object of our search. In the same manner we ought to
examine the constitution of all those communities in which, under
whatever form, the blessings of good government are enjoyed; and to
discover, if possible, in what they resemble each other, and in what
they all differ from those societies in which the object of government
is not attained. By proceeding thus we shall arrive, not indeed at a
perfect theory of government, but at a theory which will be of great
practical use, and which the experience of every successive generation
will probably bring nearer and nearer to perfection.
The inconsistencies into which Mr. Mill has been betrayed by taking a
different course ought to serve as a warning to all speculators. Because
Denmark is well governed by a monarch who, in appearance at least, is
absolute, Mr. Mill thinks that the only mode of arriving at the true
principles of government is to deduce them _a priori_ from the laws of
human nature. And what conclusion does he bring out by this deduction?
We will give it in his own words:--“In the grand discovery of modern
times, the system of representation, {97}the solution of all the
difficulties, both speculative and practical, will perhaps be found. If
it cannot, we seem to be forced upon the extraordinary conclusion that
good government is impossible.” That the Danes are well governed without
a representation is a reason for deducing the theory of government
from a general principle from which it necessarily follows that good
government is impossible without a representation! We have done our
best to put this question plainly; and we think that, if the Westminster
Reviewer will read over what we have written twice or thrice with
patience and attention, some glimpse of our meaning will break in even
on his mind.
Some objections follow, so frivolous and unfair, that we are almost
ashamed to notice them.
“_When it was said that there was in Denmark a balanced contest between
the king and the nobility, what was said was, that there was a balanced
contest, but it did not last. It was balanced till something put an end
to the balance; and so is everything else That such a balance will not
last, is precisely what Mr. Mill had demonstrated_.”
Mr. Mill, we positively affirm, pretends to demonstrate, not merely that
a balanced contest between the king and the aristocracy will not last,
but that the chances are as infinity to one against the existence of
such a balanced contest. This is a mere question of fact. We quote the
words of the essay, and defy the Westminster Reviewer to impeach our
accuracy:--
“_It seems impossible that such equality should ever exist. How is it to
be established? Or by what criterion is it to be ascertained? If there
is no such criterion, it must, in all cases, be the result of chance. If
so, the chances against it are as infinity to one_.”
The Reviewer has confounded the division of power {98}with the balance
or equal division of power. Mr. Mill says that the division of power
can never exist long, because it is next to impossible that the equal
division of power should ever exist at all.
“_When Mr. Mill asserted that it cannot be for the interest of either
the monarchy or the aristocracy to combine with the democracy, it is
plain he did not assert that if the monarchy and aristocracy were in
doubtful contest with each other, they would not, either of them, accept
of the assistance of the democracy. He spoke of their taking the side
of the democracy; not of their allowing the democracy to take side with
themselves_.”
If Mr. Mill meant any thing, he must have meant this--that the monarchy
and the aristocracy will never forget their enmity to the democracy in
their enmity to each other.
“_The monarchy and aristocracy,” says he, “have all possible motives for
endeavouring to obtain unlimited power over the persons and property
of the community. The consequence is inevitable. They have all possible
motives for combining to obtain that power, and unless the people
have power enough to be a match for both they have no protection. The
balance, therefore, is a thing the existence of which upon the best
possible evidence is to be regarded as impossible_.”
If Mr. Mill meant only what the Westminster Reviewer conceives him to
have meant, his argument would leave the popular theory of the balance
quite untouched. For it is the very theory of the balance that the help
of the people will be solicited by the nobles when hard pressed by the
king, and by the king when hard pressed by the nobles; and that, as the
price of giving alternate support to the crown and the aristocracy, they
will obtain something for themselves, as the Reviewer admits that they
have done in Denmark. If Mr. Mill admits this, he admits the only theory
of the balance of which we ever heard--that {99}very theory which he has
declared to be wild and chimerical. If he denies it, he is at issue with
the Westminster Reviewer as to the phenomena of the Danish government.
We now come to a more important passage. Our opponent has discovered, as
he conceives, a radical error which runs through our whole argument, and
vitiates every part of it. We suspect that we shall spoil his triumph.
“_Mr. Mill never asserted ‘that under no despotic government does any
human being, except the tools of the sovereign possess more than the
necessaries of life, and that the most intense degree of terror is
kept up by constant cruelty.’ He said that absolute power leads to
such results, ‘by infallible sequence, where power over a community is
attained, and nothing checks’ The critic on the Mount never made a more
palpable misquotation.
“The spirit of this misquotation runs through every part of the reply
of the Edinburgh Review that relates to the Essay on Government; and is
repeated in as many shapes as the Roman pork. The whole description of
‘Mr. Mill’s argument against despotism,’--including the illustration
from right-angled triangles and the square of the hypothenuse,--is
founded on this invention of saying what an author has not said, and
leaving unsaid what he has_.”
We thought, and still think, for reasons which our readers will soon
understand, that we represented Mr. Mill’s principle quite fairly, and
according to the rule of law and common sense, _ut res magis valeat guam
pereat_. Let us, however, give him all the advantage of the explanation
tendered by his advocate, and see what he will gain by it.
The Utilitarian doctrine then is, not that despots and aristocracies
will always plunder and oppress the people to the last point, but that
they will do so if nothing checks them.
In the first place, it is quite clear that the doctrine {100}thus stated
is of no use at all, unless the force of the checks be estimated. The
first law of motion is, that a ball once projected will fly on to all
eternity with undiminished velocity, unless something checks. The fact
is, that a ball stops in a few seconds after proceeding a few yards with
very variable motion. Every man would wring his child’s neck and pick
his friend’s pocket if nothing checked him. In fact, the principle thus
stated means only that governments will oppress unless they abstain
from oppressing. This is quite true, we own. But we might with equal
propriety turn the maxim round, and lay it down, as the fundamental
principle of government, that all rulers will govern well, unless some
motive interferes to keep them from doing so.
If there be, as the Westminster Reviewer acknowledges, certain checks
which, under political institutions the most arbitrary in seeming,
sometimes produce good government, and almost always place some
restraint on the rapacity and cruelty of the powerful, surely the
knowledge of those checks, of their nature, and of their effect, must
be a most important part of the science of government. Does Mr. Mill say
any thing upon this part of the subject? Not one word.
The line of defence now taken by the Utilitarians evidently degrades Mr.
Mill’s theory of government from the rank which, till within the last
few months, was claimed for it by the whole sect. It is no longer a
practical system, fit to guide statesmen, but merely a barren exercise
of the intellect, like those propositions in mechanics in which the
effect of friction and of the resistance of the air is left out of
the question; and which, therefore, though correctly deduced from the
premises, are in practice utterly false. For, if Mr. {101}Mill professes
to prove only that absolute monarchy and aristocracy are pernicious
without checks,--if he allows that there are checks which produce good
government even under absolute monarchs and aristocracies,--and if he
omits to tell us what those checks are, and what effects they produce
under different circumstances,--he surely gives us no information which
can be of real utility.
But the fact is,--and it is most extraordinary that the Westminster
Reviewer should not have perceived it,--that, if once the existence
of checks on the abuse of power in monarchies and aristocracies be
admitted, the whole of Mr. Milks theory falls to the ground at once.
This is so palpable, that, in spite of the opinion of the Westminster
Reviewer, we must acquit Mr. Mill of having intended to make such an
admission. We still think that the words, “where power over a community
is attained, and nothing checks,” must not be understood to mean that
under a monarchical or aristocratical form of government there can
really be any check which can in any degree mitigate the wretchedness of
the people.
For all possible checks may be classed under two general heads,--want
of will, and want of power. Now, if a king or an aristocracy, having
the power to plunder and oppress the people, can want the will, all Mr.
Mill’s principles of human nature must be pronounced unsound. He tells
us, “that the desire to possess unlimited power of inflicting pain upon
others, is an inseparable part of human nature;” and that a “chain of
inference, close and strong to a most unusual degree,” leads to the
conclusion that those who possess this power will always desire to use
it. It is plain, therefore, that, if Mr. Mill’s principles be sound, the
{102}check on a monarchical or an aristocratical government will not be
the want of will to oppress.
If a king or an aristocracy, having, as Mr. Mill tells us that they
always must have, the will to oppress the people with the utmost
severity, want the power, then the government, by whatever name it may
be called, must be virtually a mixed government or a pure democracy: for
it is quite clear that the people possess some power in the state--some
means of influencing the nominal rulers. But Mr. Mill has demonstrated
that no mixed government can possibly exist, or at least that such a
government must come to a very speedy end; therefore, every country in
which people not in the service of the government have, for any length
of time, been permitted to accumulate more than the bare means of
subsistence must be a pure democracy. That is to say, France before the
revolution, and Ireland during the last century, were pure democracies.
Prussia, Austria, Russia, all the governments of the civilised world,
are pure democracies. If this be not a _reductio ad absurdum_, we do not
know what is.
The errors of Mr. Mill proceed principally from that radical vice in his
reasoning which, in our last number, we described in the words of Lord
Bacon. The Westminster Reviewer is unable to discover the meaning of our
extracts from the _Novum Organum_, and expresses himself as follows:
“_The quotations from Lord Bacon are misapplications, such as anybody
may make to any thing he dislikes. There is no more resemblance between
pain, pleasure, motives, &c., and substantia, generation corrupting
elementum, materia,--than between lines, angles, magnitudes, &c., and
the same_.”
It would perhaps be unreasonable to expect that a {103}writer who cannot
understand his own English should understand Lord Bacon’s Latin. We will
therefore attempt to make our meaning clearer.
What Lord Bacon blames in the schoolmen of his time is this,--that
they reasoned syllogistically on words which had not been defined with
precision; such as moist, dry, generation, corruption, and so forth.
Mr. Mill’s error is exactly of the same kind. He reasons syllogistically
about power, pleasure, and pain, without attaching any definite notion
to any one of those words. There is no more resemblance, says the
Westminster Reviewer, between pain and substantia than between pain and
a line or an angle. By his permission, in the very point to which
Lord Bacon’s observation applies, Mr. Mill’s subjects do resemble the
_substantia_ and _elementum_ of the schoolmen and differ from the lines
and magnitudes of Euclid. We can reason _a priori_ on mathematics,
because we can define with an exactitude which precludes all possibility
of confusion. If a mathematician were to admit the least laxity into his
notions, if he were to allow himself to be deluded by the vague sense
which words bear in popular use, or by the aspect of an ill-drawn
diagram, if he were to forget in his reasonings that a point was
indivisible, or that the definition of a line excluded breadth,
there would be no end to his blunders. The schoolmen tried to reason
mathematically about things which had not been, and perhaps could not
be, defined with mathematical accuracy. We know the result. Mr. Mill has
in our time attempted to do the same. He talks of power, for example, as
if the meaning of the word power were as determinate as the meaning of
the word circle. But, when we analyse his speculations, we find that his
notion of power is, {104}in the words of Bacon, “_phantastica et male
terminata._”
There are two senses in which we may use the word _power_ and those
words which denote the various distributions of power, as, for example,
_monarchy_;--the one sense popular and superficial,--the other more,
scientific and accurate. Mr. Mill, since he chose to reason _a priori_,
ought to have clearly pointed out in which sense he intended to use
words of this kind, and to have adhered inflexibly to the sense on which
he fixed. Instead of doing this, he flies backwards and forwards from
the one sense to the other, and brings out conclusions at last which
suit neither.
The state of those two communities to which he has himself referred--the
kingdom of Denmark and the empire of Rome--may serve to illustrate our
meaning. Looking merely at the surface of things, we should call Denmark
a despotic monarchy, and the Roman world, in the first century after
Christ, an aristocratical republic. Caligula was, in theory, nothing
more than a magistrate elected by the senate, and subject to the senate.
That irresponsible dignity which, in the most limited monarchies of our
time, is ascribed to the person of the sovereign never belonged to the
earlier Cæsars. The sentence of death which the great council of the
commonwealth passed on Nero was strictly according to the theory of the
constitution. Let, in fact, the power of the Roman emperors approached
nearer to absolute dominion than that of any prince in modern Europe.
On the other hand, the King of Denmark, in theory the most despotic of
princes, would in practice find it most perilous to indulge in cruelty
and licentiousness. Nor is there, we believe, at the present moment a
single sovereign in our x {105}part of the world who has so much real
power over the lives of his subjects as Robespierre, while he lodged at
a Handler’s and dined at a restaurateur’s, exercised over the lives of
those whom he called his fellow-citizens.
Mr. Mill and the Westminster Reviewer seem to agree that there cannot
long exist in any society a division of power between a monarch, an
aristocracy, and the people, or between any two of them. However the
power be distributed, one of the three parties will, according to them,
inevitably monopolise the whole. Now, what is here meant by power? If
Mr. Mill speaks of the external semblance of power,--of power recognised
by the theory of the constitution,--he is palpably wrong. In England,
for example, we have had for ages the name and form of a mixed
government, if nothing more. Indeed, Mr. Mill himself owns that there
are appearances which have given colour to the theory of the balance,
though he maintains that these appearances are delusive. But, if he uses
the word power in a deeper and philosophical sense, he is, if possible,
still more in the wrong than on the former supposition. For, if he had
considered in what the power of one human being over other human beings
must ultimately consist, he would have perceived, not only that there
are mixed governments in the world, but that all the governments in the
world, and all the governments which can even be conceived as existing
in the world, are virtually mixed.
If a king possessed the lamp of Aladdin,--if he governed by the help
of a genius who carried away the daughters and wives of his subjects
through the air to the royal _Parc-aux-cerfs_, and turned into stone
every man who wagged a finger against his majesty’s government, there
would indeed be an unmixed despotism. {106}But, fortunately, a ruler can
be gratified only by means of his subjects. His power depends on their
obedience; and, as any three or four of them are more than a match for
him by himself, he can only enforce the unwilling obedience of some by
means of the willing obedience of others.
Take any of those who are popularly called absolute princes--Napoleon
for example. Could Napoleon have walked through Paris, cutting off the
head of one person in every house which he passed? Certainly not without
the assistance of an army. If not, why not? Because the people had
sufficient physical power to resist him, and would have put forth that
power in defence of their lives and of the lives of their children.
In other words, there was a portion of power in the democracy under
Napoleon. Napoleon might probably have indulged himself in such an
atrocious freak of power if his army would have seconded him. But, if
his army had taken part with the people, he would have found himself
utterly helpless; and, even if they had obeyed his orders against the
people, they would not have suffered him to decimate their own body. In
other words, there was a portion of power in the hands of a minority of
the people, that is to say, in the hands of an aristocracy, under the
reign of Napoleon.
To come nearer home,--Mr. Mill tells us that it is a mistake to imagine
that the English government is mixed. He holds, we suppose, with all the
politicians of the Utilitarian school, that it is purely aristocratical.
There certainly is an aristocracy in England; and we are afraid that
their power is greater than it ought to be. They have power enough to
keep up the game-laws and corn-laws; but they have not power enough to
subject the bodies of men of the lowest class to wanton {107}outrage at
their pleasure. Suppose that they were to make a law that any gentleman
of two thousand a-year might have a day-labourer or a pauper flogged
with a cat-of-nine-tails whenever the whim might take him. It is
quite clear that the first day on which such flagellation should be
administered would be the last day of the English aristocracy. In this
point, and in many other points which might be named, the commonalty in
our island enjoy a security quite as complete as if they exercised the
right of universal suffrage. We say, therefore, that the English people
have in their own hands a sufficient guarantee that in some points the
aristocracy will conform to their wishes;--in other words, they have
a certain portion of power over the aristocracy. Therefore the English
government is mixed.
Wherever a king or an oligarchy refrains from the last extremity of
rapacity and tyranny through fear of the resistance of the people,
there the constitution, whatever it may be called, is in some measure
democratical.
The admixture of democratic power may be slight. It may be much slighter
than it ought to be; but some admixture there is. Wherever a numerical
minority, by means of superior wealth or intelligence, of political
concert, or of military discipline, exercises a greater influence on
the society than any other equal number of persons,--there, whatever the
form of government may be called, a mixture of aristocracy does in fact
exist. And, wherever a single man, from whatever cause, is so necessary
to the community, or to any portion of it, that he possesses more
power than any other man, there is a mixture of monarchy. This is
the philosophical classification of governments: and if we use this
classification we shall find, not only that {108}there are mixed
governments, but that all governments are, and must always be, mixed.
But we may safely challenge Mr. Mill to give any definition of power, or
to make any classification of governments, which shall bear him ont in
his assertion that a lasting division of authority is impracticable.
It is evidently on the real distribution of power, and not on names and
badges, that the happiness of nations must depend. The representative
system, though doubtless a great and precious discovery in politics, is
only one of the many modes in which the democratic part of the community
can efficiently check the governing few. That certain men have been
chosen as deputies of the people,--that there is a piece of paper
stating such deputies to possess certain powers,--these circumstances
in themselves constitute no security for good government. Such a
constitution nominally existed in France; while, in fact, an oligarchy
of committees and clubs trampled at once on the electors and the
elected. Representation is a very happy contrivance for enabling large
bodies of men to exert their power with less risk of disorder than there
would otherwise be. But, assuredly, it does not of itself give power.
Unless a representative assembly is sure of being supported in the
last resort by the physical strength of large masses who have spirit
to defend the constitution and sense to defend it in concert, the mob of
the town in which it meets may overawe it;--the howls of the listeners
in its gallery may silence its deliberations;--an able and daring
individual may dissolve it. And, if that sense and that spirit of
which we speak be diffused through a society, then, even without a
representative assembly, that society will enjoy many of the blessings
of good government. {109}Which is the better able to defend himself as a
strong man with nothing but his fists, or a paralytic cripple encumbered
with a sword which he cannot lift? Such, we believe, is the difference
between Denmark and some new republics in which the constitutional forms
of the United States have been most sedulously imitated.
Look at the Long Parliament on the day on which Charles came to seize
the five members: and look at it again on the day when Cromwell stamped
with his foot on its floor. On which day was its apparent power the
greater? On which day was its real power the less? Nominally subject, it
was able to defy the sovereign. Nominally sovereign, it was turned out
of doors by its servant.
Constitutions are in politics what paper money is in commerce. They
afford great facilities and conveniences. But we must not attribute to
them that value which really belongs to what they represent. They
are not power, but symbols of power, and will, in an emergency, prove
altogether useless unless the power for which they stand be forthcoming.
The real power by which the community is governed is made up of all the
means which all its members possess of giving pleasure or pain to each
other.
Great light may be thrown on the nature of a circulating medium by the
phenomena of a state of barter. And in the same manner it may be useful
to those who wish to comprehend the nature and operation of the outward
signs of power to look at communities in which no such signs exist;
for example, at the great community of nations. There we find nothing
analogous to a constitution: but do we not find a government? We do in
fact find government in its purest, and simplest, and most intelligible
form. We see one portion {110}of power acting directly on another
portion of power. We see a certain police kept up; the weak to a certain
degree protected; the strong to a certain degree restrained. We see the
principle of the balance in constant operation. We see the whole system
sometimes undisturbed by any attempt at encroachment for twenty or
thirty years at a time; and all this is produced without a legislative
assembly, or an executive magistracy--without tribunals--without any
code which deserves the name; solely by the mutual hopes and fears of
the various members of the federation. In the community of nations,
the first appeal is to physical force. In communities of men, forms
of government serve to put off that appeal, and often render it
unnecessary. But it is still open to the oppressed or the ambitious.
Of course, we do not mean to deny that a form of government will, after
it has existed for a long time, materially affect the real distribution
of power throughout the community. This is because those who administer
a government, with their dependents, form a compact and disciplined
body, which, acting methodically and in concert, is more powerful than
any other equally numerous body which is inferior in organisation.
The power of rulers is not, as superficial observers sometimes seem
to think, a thing _sui generis_. It is exactly similar in kind, though
generally superior in amount, to that of any set of conspirators who
plot to overthrow it. We have seen in our time the most extensive and
the best organised conspiracy that ever existed--a conspiracy which
possessed all the elements of real power in so great a degree that it
was able to cope with a strong government, and to triumph over it--the
Catholic Association. An Utilitarian {111}would tell us, we suppose,
that the Irish Catholics had no portion of political power whatever on
the first day of the late Session of Parliament.
Let us really go beyond the surface of facts: let us, in the sound sense
of the words, penetrate to the springs within; and the deeper we go the
more reason shall we find to smile at those theorists who hold that the
sole hope of the human race is in a rule-of-three sum and a ballot-box.
We must now return to the Westminster Reviewer. The following paragraph
is an excellent specimen of his peculiar mode of understanding and
answering arguments.
“_The reply to the argument against ‘saturation,’ supplies its own
answer. The reason why it is of no use to try to ‘saturate’ is precisely
what the Edinburgh Reviewers have suggested,--‘that there is no limit
to the number of thieves’ There are the thieves, and the thieves’
cousins,--with their men-servants, their maid-servants, and their little
ones, to the fortieth generation. It is true, that ‘a man cannot become
a king or a member of the aristocracy whenever he chooses:’ but if there
is to be no limit to the depredators except their own inclination to
increase and multiply, the situation of those who are to suffer is as
wretched as it needs be. It is impossible to define what are ‘corporal
pleasures.’ A Duchess of Cleveland was a ‘corporal pleasure.’ The
most disgraceful period in the history of any nation--that of the
Restoration--presents an instance of the length to which it is possible
to go in an attempt to ‘saturate’ with pleasures of this kind._”
To reason with such a writer is like talking to a deaf man who catches
at a stray word, makes answer beside the mark, and is led further and
further into error by every attempt to explain. Yet, that our readers
may fully appreciate the abilities of the new philosophers, we shall
take the trouble to go over some of our ground again.
Mr. Mill attempts to prove that there is no point of {112}saturation
with the objects of human desire. He then takes it for granted that men
have no objects of desire but those which can be obtained only at
the expense of the happiness of others. Hence he infers that absolute
monarchs and aristocracies will necessarily oppress and pillage the
people to a frightful extent.
We answered in substance thus. There are two kinds of objects of desire;
those which give mere bodily pleasure, and those which please through
the medium of associations. Objects of the former class, it is true, a
man cannot obtain without depriving somebody else of a share. But then
with these every man is soon satisfied. A king or an aristocracy
cannot spend any very large portion of the national wealth on the mere
pleasures of sense. With the pleasures which belong to us as reasoning
and imaginative beings we are never satiated, it is true: but then, on
the other hand, many of those pleasures can be obtained without injury
to any person, and some of them can be obtained only by doing good to
others.
The Westminster Reviewer, in his former attack on us, laughed at us foil
saying that a king or an aristocracy could not be easily satiated with
the pleasures of sense, and asked why the same course was not tried with
thieves. We were not a little surprised at so silly an objection from
the pen, as we imagined, of Mr. Bentham. We returned, however, a very
simple answer. There is no limit to the number of thieves. Any man who
chooses can steal: but a man cannot become a member of the aristocracy
or a king whenever he chooses. To satiate one thief, is to tempt twenty
other people to steal. But by satiating one king or five hundred nobles
with bodily pleasures we do not produce more kings or more nobles. The
answer {113}of the Westminster Reviewer we have quoted above; and it
will amply repay our readers for the trouble of examining it. We never
read any passage which indicated notions so vague and confused. The
number of the thieves, says our Utilitarian, is not limited. For there
are the dependents and friends of the king and of the nobles. Is it
possible that he should not perceive that this comes under a different
head? The bodily pleasures which a man in power dispenses among his
creatures are bodily pleasures as respects his creatures, no doubt.
But the pleasure which he derives from bestowing them is not a bodily
pleasure. It is one of those pleasures which belong to him as a
reasoning and imaginative being. No man of common understanding can
have failed to perceive that, when we said that a king or an aristocracy
might easily be supplied to satiety with sensual Pleasures, we were
speaking of sensual pleasures directly enjoyed by themselves. But “it is
impossible,” says the Reviewer, “to define what are corporal pleasures.”
Our brother would indeed, we suspect, find it a difficult task; nor, if
we are to judge of his genius for classification from the specimen which
immediately follows, would we advise him to make the attempt. “A Duchess
of Cleveland was a corporal pleasure.” And to this wise remark is
appended a note, setting forth that Charles the Second gave to the
Duchess of Cleveland the money which he ought to have spent on the war
with Holland. We scarcely know how to answer a man who unites so much
pretension to so much ignorance. There are, among the many Utilitarians
who talk about Hume, Condillac, and Hartley, a few who have read
those writers. Let the Reviewer ask one of these what he thinks on
the subject. We shall not undertake to whip {114}a pupil of so little
promise through his first course of metaphysics. We shall, therefore,
only say--leaving him to guess and wonder what we can mean--that, in
our opinion, the Duchess of Cleveland was not a merely corporal
pleasure,--that the feeling which leads a prince to prefer one woman to
all others, and to lavish the wealth of kingdoms on her, is a feeling
which can only be explained by the law of association.
But we are tired, and even more ashamed than tired, of exposing these
blunders. The whole article is of a piece. One passage, however, we must
select, because it contains a very gross misrepresentation.
“_They never alluded to the French Revolution for the purpose of proving
that the poor were inclined to rob the rich.’ They only said, ‘as soon
as the poor again began to compare their cottages and salads with the
hotels and banquets of the rich, there would have been another scramble
for property, another general confiscation,’ &c._”
We said that, _if Mr. Mill’s principles of human nature were correct_,
there would have been another scramble for property, and another
confiscation. We particularly pointed this out in our last article. We
showed the Westminster Reviewer that he had misunderstood us. We dwelt
particularly on the condition which was introduced into our statement.
We said that we had not given, and did not mean to give, any opinion
of our own. And, after this, the Westminster Reviewer thinks proper to
repeat his former misrepresentation, without taking the least notice of
that qualification to which we, in the most marked manner, called his
attention.
We hasten on to the most curious part of the article under our
consideration--the defence of the “greatest happiness principle.” The
Reviewer charges us with having quite mistaken its nature. {115}”_All
that they ave established is, that they do not understand it. Instead
of the truism of the Whigs, ‘that the greatest happiness is the greatest
happiness,’ what Mr. Bentham had demonstrated, or at all events had laid
Inch Inundations that there was no trouble in demonstrating, was, that
the greatest happiness of the individual was in the long run to be
obtained by pursuing the greatest happiness of the aggregate_.”
It was distinctly admitted by the Westminster Reviewer, as we remarked
in our last article, that he could give no answer to the question,--why
governments should attempt to produce the greatest possible happiness?
The Reviewer replies thus:--
“_Nothing of the kind will be admitted at all. In the passage thus
selected to be tacked to the other, the question started was, concerning
‘the object of government;’ in which government was spoken of as an
operation, not as anything that is capable of feeling pleasure or
pain. In this sense it is true enough, that ought is not predicable of
governments._”
We will quote, once again, the passage which we quoted in our last
Number; and we really hope that our brother critic will feel something
like shame while he peruses it.
“_The real answer appeared to be, that men at large ought not to allow
a government to afflict them with more 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 not eat sheep, but why
men should not eat their own mutton if they can._” {116}We defy the
Westminster Reviewer to reconcile this passage with the “general
happiness principle” as he now states it. He tells us that he meant by
government, not the people invested with the powers of government, but a
mere _operation_ incapable of feeling pleasure or pain. We say, that
he meant the people invested with the powers of government, and nothing
else. It is true that ought is not predicable of an operation. But
who would ever dream of raising any question about the duties of an
operation? What did the Reviewer mean by saying, that a government could
not be interested in doing right because it was interested in doing
wrong? Can an operation be interested in either? And what did he mean by
his comparison about the lion? Is a lion an operation incapable of pain
or pleasure? And what did he mean by the expression, “other men,” so
obviously opposed to the word “government”? But let the public judge
between us. It is superfluous to argue a point so clear.
The Reviewer does indeed seem to feel that his expressions cannot be
explained away, and attempts to shuffle out of the difficulty by owning,
that “the double meaning of the word government was not got clear of
without confusion.” He has now, at all events, he assures us, made
himself master of Mr. Bentham’s philosophy. The real and genuine
“greatest happiness principle” is, that the greatest happiness of every
individual is identical with the greatest happiness of society; and all
other “greatest happiness principles” whatever are counterfeits. “This,”
says he, “is the spirit of Mr. Bentham’s principle; and if there is
anything opposed to it in any former statement it may be corrected by
the present.”
Assuredly, if a fair and honourable opponent had, {117}in discussing a
question so abstruse as that concerning the origin of moral obligation,
made some unguarded admission inconsistent with the spirit of his
doctrines, we should not be inclined to triumph over him. But no
tenderness is due to a writer who, in the very act of confessing his
blunders, insults those by whom his blunders have been detected,
and accuses them of misunderstanding what, in pet, he has himself
mis-stated.
The whole of this transaction illustrates excellently the real character
of this sect. A paper comes forth, professing to contain a full
developement of the “greatest happiness principle,” with the latest
improvements of Mr. Bentham. The writer boasts that his article has
the honour of being the announcement and the organ of this wonderful
discovery, which is to make “the bones of sages and patriots stir
within their tombs.” This “magnificent principle” is then stated thus:
Mankind ought to pursue their greatest happiness. But there are persons
whose interest is opposed to the greatest happiness of mankind. _Ought_
is not predicable of such persons. For the word _ought_ has no meaning
unless it be used with reference to some interest.
We answered, with much more lenity than we should have shown to such
nonsense, had it not proceeded, as we supposed, from Mr. Bentham, that
interest was synonymous with greatest happiness; and that, therefore, if
the word ought has no meaning, unless used with reference to interest,
then, to say that mankind ought to pursue their greatest happiness, is
simply to say, that the greatest happiness is the greatest happiness;
that every individual pursues his own happiness; that either what he
thinks is happiness must coincide with the greatest happiness of
society or not; that, if what he thinks his happiness coincides with
the greatest {118}happiness of society, he will attempt to promote the
greatest happiness of society whether he ever heard of the “greatest
happiness principle” or not; and that, by the admission of the
Westminster Reviewer, if his happiness is inconsistent with the greatest
happiness of society, there is no reason why he should promote the
greatest happiness of society. Now, that there are individuals who think
that for their happiness which is not for the greatest happiness of
society is evident. The Westminster Reviewer allowed that some of these
individuals were in the right; and did not pretend to give any reason
which could induce any one of them to think himself in the wrong. So
that the “magnificent principle” turned out to be, either a truism or
a contradiction in terms; either this maxim--“Do what you do;” or this
maxim, “Do what you cannot do.”
The Westminster Reviewer had the wit to see that he could not defend
this palpable nonsense; but, instead of manfully owning that he had
misunderstood the whole nature of the “greatest happiness principle” in
the summer, and had obtained new light during the autumn, he attempts
to withdraw the former principle unobserved, and to substitute another,
directly opposed to it, in its place; clamouring all the time against
our unfairness, like one who, while changing the carol diverts the
attention of the table from his sleight of hand by vociferating charges
of foul play against other people.
The “greatest happiness principle” for the present quarter is then
this,--that every individual will best promote his own happiness in
this world, religious considerations being left out of the question,
by promoting the greatest happiness of the whole species. And
this principle, we are told, holds good with respect to kings and
aristocracies as well as with other people. {119}”_It is certain that
the individual operators in any government, if they were thoroughly
intelligent and entered into a perfect calculation of all existing
chances, would seek lor their own happiness in the promotion of the
general; which brings them, if they knew it, under Mr. Bentham’s rule.
The mistake of supposing the contrary, lies in confounding criminals
who have had the luck to escape punishment with those who have the
risk still before them. Suppose, for instance, a member of the House of
Commons were at this moment to debate within himself, whether it would
be for his ultimate happiness to begin, according to his ability, to
misgovern. If he could be sure of being as lucky as some that are dead
and gone, there might be difficulty in finding him an answer. But he is
not sure; and never can be, till he is dead. He does not know that he
is not close upon the moment when misgovernment such as he is tempted to
contemplate, will be made a terrible example of. It is not fair to pick
out the instance of the thief that has died unhanged. The question is,
whether thieving is at this moment an advisable trade to begin with all
the possibilities of hanging not got over? This is the spirit of Mr.
Bentham’s principle; and if there is any thing opposed to it in any
former statement, it may be corrected by the present_.”
We hope that we have now at last got to the real “magnificent
principle,”--to the principle which is really to make “the hones of the
sages and patriots stir.” What effect it may produce on the bones of
the dead we shall not pretend to decide; but we are sure that it will do
very little for the happiness of the living.
In the first place, nothing is more certain than this, that the
Utilitarian theory of government, as developed in Mr. Mill’s Essay and
in all the other works on the subject which have been put forth by the
sect, rests on these two principles,--that men follow their interest,
and that the interest of individuals may be, and in fact perpetually
is, opposed to the interest of society. Unless these two principles be
granted, Mr. Mill’s Essay does not contain one sound sentence. All his
arguments {120}against monarchy and aristocracy, all his arguments in
favour of democracy, nay, the very argument by which he shows that
there is any necessity for having government at all, must be rejected as
utterly worthless.
This is so palpable that even the Westminster Reviewer, though not the
most clear-sighted of men, could not help seeing it. Accordingly, he
attempts to guard himself against the objection, after the manner of
such reasoners, by committing two blunders instead of one. “All this,”
says he, “only shows that the members of a government would do well if
they were all-wise;” and he proceeds to tell us that, as rulers are not
all-wise, they will invariably act against this principle wherever they
can, so that the democratical checks will still be necessary to produce
good government.
No form which human folly takes is so richly and exquisitely laughable
as the spectacle of an Utilitarian in a dilemma. What earthly good can
there be in a principle upon which no man will act until he is allwise?
A certain most important doctrine, we are told, has been demonstrated so
clearly that it ought to be the foundation of the science of government.
And yet the whole frame of government is to be constituted exactly as
if this fundamental doctrine were false, and on the supposition that no
human being will ever act as if he believed it to be true!
The whole argument of the Utilitarians in favour of universal suffrage
proceeds on the supposition that even the rudest and most uneducated men
cannot, for any length of time, be deluded into acting against their
own true interest. Yet now they tell us that, in all aristocratical
communities, the higher and more educated class will, not occasionally,
but invariably, act against {121}its own interest. Now, the only use of
proving anything, as far as we can see, is that people may believe it.
To say that a man does what he believes to be against his happiness is
a contradiction in terms. If, therefore, government and laws are to be
constituted on the supposition on which Mr. Mill’s Essay is founded,
that all individuals will, whenever they have power over others put
into their hands, act in opposition to the general happiness, then
government, and laws must be constituted on the supposition that no
individual believes, or ever will believe, his own happiness to be
identical with the happiness of society. That is to say, government and
laws are to be constituted on the supposition that no human being will
ever be satisfied by Mr. Bentham’s proof of his “greatest happiness
principle,”--a supposition which may be true enough, but which says
little, we think, for the principle in question.
But where has this principle been demonstrated? We are curious, we
confess, to see this demonstration which is to change the face of the
world and yet is to convince nobody. The most amusing circumstance is
that the Westminster Reviewer himself does not seem to know whether the
principle has been demonstrated or not. “Mr. Bentham,” he says, “has
demonstrated it, or at all events has laid such foundations that there
is no trouble in demonstrating it.” Surely it is rather strange that
such a matter should be left in doubt. The Reviewer proposed, in his
former article, a slight verbal emendation in the statement of the
principle; he then announced that the principle had received its last
improvement; and gloried in the circumstance that the Westminster Review
had been selected as the organ of that improvement. Did it never occur
to {122}him that one slight improvement to a doctrine is to prove it?
Mr. Bentham has not demonstrated the “greatest happiness principle,” as
now stated. He is far too wise a man to think of demonstrating any
such thing. In those sections of his _Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation_, to which the Reviewer refers us in his note,
there is not a word of the kind. Mr. Bentham says, most truly, that
there are no occasions in which a man has not _some_ motives for
consulting the happiness of other men; and he proceeds to set forth what
those motives are--sympathy on all occasions, and the love of reputation
on most occasions. This is the very doctrine which we have been
maintaining against Mr. Mill and the Westminster Reviewer. The principal
charge which we brought against Mr. Mill was, that those motives to
which Mr. Bentham ascribes so much influence were quite left out of
consideration in his theory. The Westminster Reviewer, in the very
article now before us, abuses us for saying, in the spirit, and almost
in the words of Mr. Bentham, that “there is a certain check to the
rapacity and cruelty of men in their desire of the good opinion of
others.” But does this principle, in which we fully agree with Mr.
Bentham, go the length of the new “greatest happiness principle?” The
question is, not whether men have _some_ motives for promoting the
greatest happiness, but whether the _stronger_ motives be those which
impel them to promote the greatest happiness. That this would always be
the case if men knew their own worldly interests is the assertion of
the Reviewer. As he expresses some doubt whether Mr. Bentham has
demonstrated this or not, we would advise him to set the point at rest
by giving his own demonstration. {123}The Reviewer has not attempted to
give a general confirmation of the “greatest happiness principle;” but
he has tried to prove that it holds good in one or two particular cases.
And even in those particular cases he has utterly failed. A man, says
he, who calculated the chances fairly would perceive that it would be
for his greatest happiness to abstain from stealing; for a thief runs a
greater risk of being hanged than an honest man.
It would have been wise, we think, in the Westminster Reviewer, before
he entered on a discussion of this sort, to settle in what human
happiness consists. Each of the ancient sects of philosophy held some
tenet on this subject which served for a distinguishing badge. The
_summum bonum_ of the Utilitarians, as far as we can Judge from the
passage which we are now considering, is the not being hanged.
That it is an unpleasant thing to be hanged, we most willingly concede
to our brother. But that the whole question of happiness or misery
resolves itself into this single point, we cannot so easily admit. We
must look at the thing purchased as well as the price paid for it. A
thief, assuredly, runs a greater risk of being hanged than a labourer;
and so an officer in the army runs a greater risk of being shot than a
banker’s clerk; and a governor of India runs a greater risk of lying of
cholera than a lord of the bedchamber. But does it therefore follow that
every man, whatever his habits or feelings may be, would, if he knew
his own happiness, become a clerk rather than a cornet, or goldstick in
waiting rather than governor of India?
Nothing can be more absurd than to suppose, like the Westminster
Reviewed that thieves steal only because they do not calculate the
chances of being {124}hanged as correctly as honest men. It never seems
to have occurred to him as possible that a man may so greatly prefer the
life of a thief to the life of a labourer that he may determine to brave
the risk of detection and punishment, though he may even think that risk
greater than it really is. And how, on Utilitarian principles, is such
a man to be convinced that he is in the wrong? “You will be found
out.”--“Undoubtedly.”--“You will be hanged within two years.”--“I expect
to be hanged within one year.”--“Then why do you pursue this lawless
mode of life?”--“Because I would rather live for one year with plenty
of money, dressed like a gentleman, eating and drinking of the best,
frequenting public places, and visiting a dashing mistress, than break
stones on the road, or sit down to the loom, with the certainty of
attaining a good old age. It is my humour. Are you answered?” “A king,
says the Reviewer again, would govern well, if he were wise, for fear of
provoking his subjects to insurrection. Therefore, the true happiness of
a king is identical with the greatest happiness of society. Tell Charles
II. that, if he will be constant to his queen, sober at table, regular
at prayers, frugal in his expenses, active in the transaction of
business, if he will drive the herd of slaves, buffoons, and procurers
from Whitehall, and make the happiness of his people the rule of his
conduct, he will have a much greater chance of reigning in comfort to
an advanced age; that his profusion and tyranny have exasperated his
subjects, and may, perhaps, bring him to an end as terrible as his
father’s.” He might answer, that he saw the danger, but that life was
not worth having without ease and vicious pleasures. And what has our
philosopher to say? Does he not see that it is no more possible to
{125}reason a man out of liking a short life and a merry one more than
a long life and a dull one than to reason a Greenlander out of his train
oil? We may say that the tastes of the thief and the tyrant differ from
ours; but what right have we to say, looking at this world alone, that
they do not pursue their greatest happiness very judiciously?
It is the grossest ignorance of human nature to suppose that another man
calculates the chances differently from us, merely because he does what,
in his place, we should not do. Every man has tastes and propensities,
which he is disposed to gratify at a risk and expense which people of
different temperaments and habits think extravagant. “Why,” says Horace,
“does one brother like to lounge in the forum, to play in the Campus,
and to anoint himself in the baths, so well, that he would not put
himself out of his way for all the wealth of the richest plantations of
the East; while the other toils from sunrise to sunset for the purpose
of increasing his fortune?” Horace attributes the diversity to the
influence of the Genius and the natal star: and eighteen hundred
years have taught us only to disguise our ignorance beneath a more
philosophical language.
We think, therefore, that the Westminster Reviewer, even if we admit his
calculation of the chances to be right, does not make out his case. But
he appears to us to miscalculate chances more grossly than any person
who ever acted or speculated in this world. “It is for the happiness,”
says he, “of a member of the House of Commons to govern well; for he
never can tell that he is not close on the moment when misgovernment
will be terribly punished: if he was sure that he should be as lucky as
his predecessors, it might be {126}for his happiness to misgovern; but
he is not sure.” Certainly a member of Parliament is not sure that he
shall not be torn in pieces by a mob, or guillotined by a revolutionary
tribunal for his opposition to reform. Nor is the Westminster Reviewer
sure that he shall not be handed for writing in favour of universal
suffrage.
We may have democratical massacres. We may also have aristocratical
proscriptions. It is not very likely, thank God, that we should
see either. But the radical, we think, runs as much danger as the
aristocrat. As to our friend the Westminster Reviewer, he, it must
be owned, has as good a right as any man on his side, “Antoni gladios
conternnere.” But take the man whose votes, ever since he has sate in
Parliament, have been the most uniformly bad, and oppose him to the man
whose votes have been the most uniformly good. The Westminster Reviewer
would probably select Mr. Sadler and Mr. Hume. Now, does any rational
man think,--will the Westminster Reviewer himself say,--that Mr. Sadler
runs more risk of coming to a miserable end on account of his public
conduct than Mr. Hume? Mr. Sadler does not know that he is not close on
the moment when he will be made an example of; for Mr. Sadler knows, if
possible, less about the future than about the past. But he has no more
reason to expect that he shall be made an example of than to expect that
London will be swallowed up by an earthquake next spring; and it would
be as foolish in him to act on the former supposition as on the latter.
There is a risk; for there is a risk of every thing which does not
involve a contradiction; but it is a risk from which no man in his wits
would give a shilling to be insured. Yet our Westminster Reviewer tells
us that this risk alone, apart from all {127}considerations of religion,
honour, or benevolence, would, as a matter of mere calculation, induce a
wise member of the House of Commons to refuse any emoluments which might
be offered him as the price of his support to pernicious measures.
We have hitherto been examining cases proposed by our opponent. It is
now our turn to propose one; and we beg that he will spare no wisdom in
solving it.
A thief is condemned to be hanged. On the eve of the day fixed for the
execution a turnkey enters his cell and tells him that all is safe,
that he has only to slip out, that his friends are waiting in the
neighbourhood with disguises, and that a passage is taken for him in
an American packet. Now, it is clearly for the greatest happiness of
society that the thief should be hanged and the corrupt turnkey exposed
and punished. Will the Westminster Reviewer tell us that it is for the
greatest happiness of the thief to summon the head jailer and tell the
whole story? Now, either it is for the greatest happiness of a thief
to be hanged or it is not. If it is, then the argument, by which the
Westminster Reviewer attempts to prove that men do not promote their own
happiness by thieving, falls to the ground. If it is not, then there are
men whose greatest happiness is at variance with the greatest happiness
of the community.
To sum up our arguments shortly, we say that the “greatest happiness
principle,” as now stated, is diametrically opposed to the principle
stated in the Westminster Review three months ago.
We say that, if the “greatest happiness principle,” as now stated,
be sound, Mr. Mill’s Essay, and all other works concerning Government
which, like that Essay, proceed on the supposition that individuals may
have {128}an interest opposed to the greatest happiness of society, are
fundamentally erroneous.
We say that those who hold this principle to be sound must be prepared
to maintain, either that monarchs and aristocracies may be trusted to
govern the community, or else that men cannot be trusted to follow their
own interest when that interest is demonstrated to them.
We say that, if men cannot be trusted to follow their own interest
when that interest has been demonstrated to them, then the Utilitarian
arguments in favour of universal suffrage are good for nothing.
We say that the “greatest happiness principle” has not been proved;
that it cannot be generally proved; that even in the particular cases
selected by the Reviewer it is not clear that the principle is true;
and that many cases might be stated in which the common sense of mankind
would at once pronounce it to be false.
We now leave the Westminster Reviewer to alter and amend his
“magnificent principle” as he thinks best. Unlimited, it is false.
Properly limited, it will be barren. The “greatest happiness principle”
of the 1st of July, as far as we could discern its meaning through
a cloud of rodomontade, was an idle truism. The “greatest happiness
principle” of the 1st of October is, in the phrase of the American
newspapers, “important if true.” But unhappily it is not true. It is not
our business to conjecture what new maxim is to make the bones of sages
and patriots stir on the 1st of December. We can only say that, unless
it be something infinitely more ingenious than its two predecessors, we
shall leave it unmolested. The Westminster Reviewer may, if he pleases,
indulge himself like {129}Sultan Schahriar with espousing a rapid
succession of virgin theories. But we must beg to be excused from
playing the part of the vizier who regularly attended on the day after
the wedding to strangle the new Sultana.
The Westminster Reviewer charges us with urging it as an objection to
the “greatest happiness principle” that “it is included in the Christian
morality.” This is a mere fiction of his own. We never attacked the
morality of the Gospel. We blamed the Utilitarians for claiming the
credit of a discovery, when they had merely stolen that morality, and
spoiled it in the stealing. They have taken the precept of Christ and
left the motive; and they demand the praise of a most wonderful and
beneficial invention, when all that they have done has been to make
a most useful maxim useless by separating it from its sanction. On
religious principles it is true that every individual will best promote
his own happiness by promoting the happiness of others. But if religious
considerations be left out of the question it is not true. If we do not
reason on the supposition of a future state, where is the motive? If we
do reason on that supposition, where is the discovery?
The Westminster Reviewer tells us that “we wish to see the science of
Government unsettled because we see no prospect of a settlement which
accords with our interests.” His angry eagerness to have questions
settled resembles that of a judge in one of Dryden’s plays--the
Amphitryon, we think--who wishes to decide a pause after hearing only
one party, and, when he has been at last compelled to listen to the
statement of the defendant, flies into a passion, and exclaims, “There
now, sir! See what you have done. The case was {130}quite dear a minute
ago; and you must come and puzzle it!” He is the zealot of a sect. We
are searchers after truth. He wishes to have the question settled. We
wish to have it sifted first. The querulous manner in which we have been
blamed for attacking Mr. Mill’s system, and propounding no system of
our own, reminds us of the horror with which that shallow dogmatist,
Epicurus, the worst parts of whose nonsense the Utilitarians have
attempted to revive, shrank from the keen and searching scepticism of
the second Academy.
It is not our fault that an experimental science of vast extent does not
admit of being settled by a short demonstration;--that the subtilty
of nature, in the moral as in the physical world, triumphs over the
subtilty of syllogism. The quack, who declares on affidavit that, by
using his pills and attending to his printed directions, hundreds who
had been dismissed incurable from the hospitals have renewed their youth
like the eagles, may, perhaps, think that Sir Henry Halford, when
he feels the pulses of patients, inquires about their symptoms, and
prescribes a different remedy to each, is unsettling the science of
medicine for the sake of a fee.
If, in the course of this controversy, we have refrained from expressing
any opinion respecting the political institutions of England, it is not
because we have not an opinion or because we shrink from avowing it. The
Utilitarians, indeed, conscious that their boasted theory of government
would not bear investigation, were desirous to turn the dispute about
Mr. Mill’s Essay into a dispute about the Whig party, rotten boroughs,
unpaid magistrates, and ex-officio informations. When we blamed them for
talking nonsense. {131}they cried out that they were insulted for being
reformers,--just as poor Ancient Pistol swore that the scars which he
had received from the cudgel of Fluellen were got in the Gallia wars.
We, however, did not think it desirable to mix up political questions,
about which the public mind is violently agitated, with a great problem
in moral philosophy.
Our notions about Government are not, however, altogether unsettled. We
have an opinion about parliamentary reform, though we have not arrived
at that opinion by the royal road which Mr. Mill has opened for the
explorers of political science. As we are taking leave, probably for the
last time, of this controversy, we will state very concisely what our
doctrines are. On some future occasion we may, perhaps, explain and
defend them at length.
Our fervent wish, and we will add our sanguine hope, is that we may
see such a reform of the House of Commons as may render its votes
the express image of the opinion of the middle orders of Britain. A
pecuniary qualification we think absolutely necessary; and, in settling
its amount, our object would be to draw the line in such a manner that
every decent farmer and shopkeeper might possess the elective franchise.
We should wish to see an end put to all the advantages which particular
forms of property possess over other forms, and particular portions of
property over other equal portions. And this would content us. Such a
reform would, according to Mr. Mill, establish an aristocracy of wealth,
and leave the community without protection and exposed to all the evils
of unbridled power. Most willingly would we stake the whole controversy
between us on the success of the experiment which we propose.