"Fourthly, The Edinburgh Reviewers are of opinion, that 'it might, with
no small plausibility, be maintained, that in many countries, there are
two classes which, in some degree, answer to this description;' [viz.]
'that the poor compose the class which government is established to
restrain; and the people of some property the class to which the powers
of government may without danger be confided.'
"They take great pains, it is true, to say this and not to say it. They
shuffle and creep about, to secure a hole to escape at, if 'what they
do not assert' should be found in any degree inconvenient. A man
might waste his life in trying to find out whether the Misses of the
'Edinburgh' mean to say Yes or No in their political coquetry. But
whichever way the lovely spinsters may decide, it is diametrically
opposed to history and the evidence of facts, that the poor ARE the
class whom there is any difficulty in restraining. It is not the poor
but the rich that have a propensity to take the property of other
people. There is no instance upon earth of the poor having combined to
take away the property of the rich; and all the instances habitually
brought forward in support of it are gross misrepresentations, founded
upon the most necessary acts of self-defence on the part of the most
numerous classes. Such a misrepresentation is the common one of the
Agrarian law; which was nothing but an attempt on the part of the
Roman people to get back some part of what had been taken from them by
undisguised robbery. Such another is the stock example of the French
Revolution, appealed to by the 'Edinburgh Review' in the actual case.
It is utterly untrue that the French Revolution took place because 'the
poor began to compare their cottages and salads with the hotels and
banquets of the rich;' it took place because they were robbed of
their cottages and salads to support the hotels and banquets of their
oppressors. It is utterly untrue that there was either a scramble for
property or a general confiscation; the classes who took part with the
foreign invaders lost their property, as they would have done here, and
ought to do everywhere. All these are the vulgar errors of the man on
the lion's back,--which the lion will set to rights when he can tell his
own story. History is nothing but the relation of the sufferings of the
poor from the rich; except precisely so far as the numerous classes of
the community have contrived to keep the virtual power in their hands,
or, in other words, to establish free governments. If a poor man injures
the rich, the law is instantly at his heels; the injuries of the rich
towards the poor are always inflicted BY the law. And to enable the rich
to do this to any extent that may be practicable or prudent, there is
clearly one postulate required, which is, that the rich shall make the
law."
This passage is alone sufficient to prove that Mr Bentham has not taken
the trouble to read our article from beginning to end. We are quite sure
that he would not stoop to misrepresent it. And, if he had read it with
any attention, he would have perceived that all this coquetry, this
hesitation, this Yes and No, this saying and not saying, is simply an
exercise of the undeniable right which in controversy belongs to the
defensive side--to the side which proposes to establish nothing. The
affirmative of the issue and the burden of the proof are with Mr Mill,
not with us. We are not bound, perhaps we are not able, to show that the
form of government which he recommends is bad. It is quite enough if we
can show that he does not prove it to be good. In his proof, among many
other flaws, is this--He says, that if men are not inclined to plunder
each other, government is unnecessary, and that, if men are so inclined,
kings and aristocracies will plunder the people. Now, this we say, is a
fallacy. That SOME men will plunder their neighbours if they can, is
a sufficient reason for the existence of governments. But it is not
demonstrated that kings and aristocracies will plunder the people,
unless it be true that ALL men will plunder their neighbours, if they
can. Men are placed in very different situations. Some have all the
bodily pleasures that they desire, and many other pleasures besides,
without plundering anybody. Others can scarcely obtain their daily bread
without plundering. It may be true, but surely it is not self-evident,
that the former class is under as strong temptations to plunder as the
latter. Mr Mill was therefore bound to prove it. That he has not proved
it is one of thirty or forty fatal errors in his argument. It is not
necessary that we should express an opinion or even have an opinion on
the subject. Perhaps we are in a state of perfect scepticism: but what
then? Are we the theorymakers? When we bring before the world a theory
of government, it will be time to call upon us to offer proof at every
step. At present we stand on our undoubted logical right. We concede
nothing; and we deny nothing. We say to the Utilitarian theorists:--When
you prove your doctrine, we will believe it; and, till you prove it, we
will not believe it.
Mr Bentham has quite misunderstood what we said about the French
Revolution. We never alluded to that event for the purpose of proving
that the poor were inclined to rob the rich. Mr Mill's principles of
human nature furnished us with that part of our argument ready-made.
We alluded to the French Revolution for the purpose of illustrating
the effects which general spoliation produces on society, not for the
purpose of showing that general spoliation will take place under a
democracy. We allowed distinctly that, in the peculiar circumstances of
the French monarchy, the Revolution, though accompanied by a great shock
to the institution of property, was a blessing. Surely Mr Bentham will
not maintain that the injury produced by the deluge of assignats and
by the maximum fell only on the emigrants,--or that there were not many
emigrants who would have stayed and lived peaceably under any government
if their persons and property had been secure.
We never said that the French Revolution took place because the poor
began to compare their cottages and salads with the hotels and banquets
of the rich. We were not speaking about THE CAUSES of the Revolution,
or thinking about them. This we said, and say, that, if a democratic
government had been established in France, the poor, when they began to
compare their cottages and salads with the hotels and banquets of the
rich, would, on the supposition that Mr Mill's principles are sound,
have plundered the rich, and repeated without provocation all the
severities and confiscations which at the time of the Revolution, were
committed with provocation. We say that Mr Mill's favourite form of
government would, if his own views of human nature be just, make those
violent convulsions and transfers of property which now rarely happen,
except, as in the case of the French Revolution, when the people are
maddened by oppression, events of annual or biennial occurrence. We gave
no opinion of our own. We give none now. We say that this proposition
may be proved from Mr Mill's own premises, by steps strictly analogous
to those by which he proves monarchy and aristocracy to be bad forms of
government. To say this, is not to say that the proposition is true.
For we hold both Mr Mill's premises and his deduction to be unsound
throughout.
Mr Bentham challenges us to prove from history that the people will
plunder the rich. What does history say to Mr Mill's doctrine, that
absolute kings will always plunder their subjects so unmercifully as to
leave nothing but a bare subsistence to any except their own creatures?
If experience is to be the test, Mr Mill's theory is unsound. If Mr
Mill's reasoning a priori be sound, the people in a democracy will
plunder the rich. Let us use one weight and one measure. Let us not
throw history aside when we are proving a theory, and take it up again
when we have to refute an objection founded on the principles of that
theory.
We have not done, however, with Mr Bentham's charges against us.
"Among other specimens of their ingenuity, they think they embarrass the
subject by asking why, on the principles in question, women should not
have votes as well as men. AND WHY NOT?
'Gentle shepherd, tell me why?'--
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 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 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 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 purpose 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 man 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:--
"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 philosophers 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 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 in 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. 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 superintence 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 thieftakers. This is an undeniable
principle of human nature. Some of my predecessors have wasted
their time in enquiring 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 everybody, 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 Fitzwilliam 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 when he is called a lord.
("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".) 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, with 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 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 more 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 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 censemus eam esse demonstrandi
formam, quae sensum tuetur, et naturam premit, 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 caetera, per media, deriventur;
via certe compendiaria, sed praecipiti, et ad naturam impervia, ad
disputationes proclivi et accommodata. At, secundum nos, axiomata
continenter et gradatim excitantur, 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, 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 ad 'Principia' scientiarum non adhibetur, ad media axiomata
frustra adhibetur, cum sit subtilitati naturae longe impar. Assensum
itaque constringit, non res. Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat,
propositiones ex verbis, verba notionum tesserae sunt. Itaque si
notiones ipsae, id quod basis rei est, confusae sint, et tenere a rebus
abstractae, nihil in iis quae superstruuntur est firmitudinis. Itaque
spes est una in Inductione vera. In notionibus nil sani est, nec in
Logicis nec in physicis. Non substantia, non qualitas, agere, pati,
ipsum esse, bonae notiones sunt; multo minus grave, leve, densum, tenue,
humidum, siccum, generatio, corruptio, attrahere, fugare, elementum,
materia, forma, et id genus, sed omnes phantasticae et male terminatae."
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 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 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 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."
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 anything 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 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 anything, 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 anything, to wish
for it, or when they do anything, 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 being able to do what
they wished, or not wishing to do what they ought.
Thus frivolous, thus useless is this philosophy,--"controversiarum
ferax, operum effoeta, ad garriendum prompta, ad generandum invalida."
(Bacon, "Novum Organum".) 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, benevolence, patriotism, liberty,
and so forth, just as far 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 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 tomorrow, 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 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 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 anything 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 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 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, 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 redacteur 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.
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