Now, this is certainly very pleasant writing. but there is no great difficulty in answering the argument. The real reason which makes it absurd to think of preventing theft by pensioning off thieves is this, that there is no limit to the number of thieves. If there were only a hundred thieves in a place, and we were quite sure that no person not already addicted to theft would take to it, it might become a question, whether to keep the thieves from dishonesty by raising them above distress, would not be a better course than to employ officers against them. But the actual cases are not parallel. Every man who chooses can become a thief; but a man cannot become a king or a member of the aristocracy whenever he chooses. The number of the depredators is being, except the tools of the sovereign, possess their benches, if the light wings of saffron more than the necessaries of life, and that the and of blue' should bear this theory into thei most intense degree of terror is kept up by grim domains! Why do not the owners of constant cruelty. This, we say, is untrue. It pocket-handkerchiefs try to 'saturate?' Why is not merely a rule to which there are excep- does not the cheated publican beg leave to tions: but it is not the rule. Despotism is bad; check the gulosity of his defrauder with a rebut it is scarcely anywhere so bad as Mr. Mill petatur haustus, and the pummelled plaintiff says that it is everywhere. This, we are sure, neutralize the malice of his adversary, by reMr. Bentham will allow. If a man were to say questing to have the rest of the beating in prethat five hundred thousand people die every sence of the court,-if it is not that such con. year in London of dram-drinking, he would duct would run counter to all the conclusions not assert a proposition more monstrously false of experience, and be the procreation of the than Mr. Mill's. Would it be just to charge us mischief it affected to destroy? Woful is the with defending intoxication because we might man whose wealth depends on his having more say that such a man was grossly in the wrong? than somebody else can be persuaded to take We say with Mr. Bentham that despotism is from him; and woful also is the people that is a bad thing. We say with Mr. Bentham that in such a case!" the exceptions do not destroy the authority of the rule. But this we say that a single exception overthrows an argument, which either does not prove the rule at all, or else proves the rule to be true without exceptions; and such an argument is Mr. Mill's argument against despotism. In this respect, there is a great difference between rules drawn from experience, and rules deduced à priori. We might believe that there had been a fall of snow last August, and yet not think it likely that there would be snow next August. A single occurrence opposed to our general experience would tell for very little in our calculation of the chances. But if we could once satisfy ourselves that, in any single right-angled triangle, the square of the hypothenuse might be less than the squares of the sides, we must re-limited; and therefore the amount of depreda ject the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid tion, so far as physical pleasures are concern. altogether. We willingly adopt Mr. Bentham's ed, must be limited also. Now, we make the lively illustration about the wolf; and we will remark which Mr. Bentham censures with resay, in passing, that it gives us real pleasure ference to physical pleasures only. The plea to see how little old age has diminished the sures of ostentation, of taste, of revenge, and gayety of this eminent man. We can assure other pleasures of the same description, have, him that his merriment gives us far more plea- we distinctly allowed, no limit. Our words are sure on his account, than pain in our own. these:-"A king or an aristocracy may be We say with him, keep the wolf out of the supplied to satiety with corporal pleasures, at an nursery, in spite of the story of Romulus and expense which the rudest and poorest commuRemus. But if the shepherd who saw the wolfnity would scarcely feel." Does Mr. Bentham licking and suckling those famous twins, were, deny this? If he does, we leave him to Mr. after telling this story to his companions, to Mill. What," says that philosopher, in his assert that it was an infallible rule that no Essay on Education, "what are the ordinary wolf ever had spared, or ever would spare, pursuits of wealth and power, which kindle to any living thing which might fall in its way-such a height the ardour of mankind? Not to that its nature was carnivorous-and that it could not possibly disobey its nature, we think that the hearers might have been excused for starting. It may be strange, but is not inconsistent, that a wolf which has eaten ninety-nine children should spare the hundredth. But the fact that a wolf has once spared a child is sufficient to show that there must be some flaw in the chain of reasoning, purporting to prove that wolves cannot possibly spare children. Mr. Bentham proceeds to attack another position which he conceives us to maintain : "Secondly, That a government not under the control of the community (for there is no question upon any other) may soon be saturated.' Tell it not in Bow Street, whisper it not in Hatton Garden-that there is a plan for preventing injustice by saturation.' With what peals of unearthly merriment would Minos, Facus, and Radamanthus. be aroused upon 6 mere love of eating and of drinking, or all the physical objects together which wealth can purchase or power command. With these every man is in the long run speedily satisfied." What the difference is between being speedily satisfied and being soon saturated, we leave Mr. Bentham and Mr. Mill to settle together. The word "saturation," however, seems to provoke Mr. Bentham's mirth. It certainly did not strike us as very pure English; but, as Mr. Mill used it, we supposed it to be good Ben thamese. With the latter language we are not critically acquainted, though, as it has many roots in common with our mother tongue, wo can contrive, by the help of a converted Utilitarian, who attends us in the capacity of Moorshee, to make out a little. But Mr. Bentham's authority is of course decisive, and we bow to it. Mr. Bentham next represents us as main-ple, because they are accustomed to wrong the taining,people. 66 Thirdly, That though there may be some tastes and propensities that have no point of saturation, there exists a sufficient check in the desire of the good opinion of others.' The misfortune of this argument is, that no man cares for the good opinion of those he has been accustomed to wrong. If oysters have opinions, it is probable they think very ill of those who eat them in August; but small is the effect upon the autumnal glutton that engulfs their gentle substances within his own. The planter and the slave-driver care just as much about negro opinion as the epicure about the sentiments of oysters. M. Ude throwing live eels into the fire as a kindly method of divesting them of the unsavoury oil that lodges beneath their skins, is not more convinced of the immense aggregate of good which arises to the lordlier parts of the creation, than is the gentle peer who strips his fellow-man of country and of family for a wild fowl slain. The goodly landowner, who lives by morsels squeezed indiscriminately from the waxy hands of the cobbler and the polluted ones of the nightman, is in no small degree the object of both hatred and contempt; but it is to be feared that he is a long way from feeling them to be intolerable. The principle of‘At mihi plaudo ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arcâ,' is sufficient to make a wide interval between the opinions of the plaintiff and defendant in such cases. In short, to banish law and leave all plaintiffs to trust to the desire of reputation on the opposite side, would only be transporting the theory of the whigs from the House of Commons to Westminster Hall." Now, in the first place, we never maintained the proposition which Mr. Bentham puts into our mouths. We said, and say, that there is a certain check to the rapacity and cruelty of men, in their desire of the good opinion of others. We never said that it was sufficient. Let Mr. Mill show it to be insufficient. It is enough for us to prove that there is a set-off against the principle from which Mr. Mill deduces the whole theory of government. The balance may be, and, we believe, will be, against despotism and the narrow forms of aristocracy. But what is this to the correctness or incorrectness of Mr. Mill's accounts? The question is not, whether the motives which lead rulers to behave ill, are stronger than those which lead them to behave well;-but whether we ought to form a theory of government by looking only at the motives which lead rulers to behave ill, and never noticing those which lead them to behave well. Absolute rulers, says Mr. Bentham, do not care for the good opinion of their subjects; for no man cares for the good opinion of those whom he has been accustomed to wrong. By Mr. Bentham's leave, this is a plain begging of the question. The point at issue is this:-Will kings and nobles wrong the people? The argument in favour of kings and nobles is this: -they will not wrong the people, because they care for the good opinion of the people. But this argument Mr. Bentham meets thus:-they will not care for the good opinion of the peo Here Mr. Mill differs, as usual, from Mr. Bentham. "The greatest princes," says he, in his Essay on Education, "the most despotical masters of human destiny, when asked what they aim at by their wars and conquests, would answer, if sincere, as Frederic of Prussia answered, pour fair parler de soi;-to occupy a large space in the admiration of mankind." Putting Mr. Mill's and Mr. Bentham's princi ples together, we might make out very easily that the greatest princes, the most despotical masters of human destiny," would never abuse their power. A man who has been long accustomed to in jure people, must also have been long accustomed to do without their love, and to endure their aversion. Such a man may not miss the pleasure of popularity; for men seldom miss a pleasure which they have long denied themselves. An old tyrant does without popularity, just as an old water-drinker does without wine. But though it is perfectly true that men who, for the good of their health, have long abstained from wine, feel the want of it very little, it would be absurd to infer that men will always abstain from wine, when their health requires that they should do so. And it would be equally absurd to say, because men who have been accustomed to oppress care little for popularity, that men will therefore necessarily prefer the pleasures of oppression to those of popularity. Then, again, a man may be accustomed to wrong people in one point, and not in another. He may care for their good opinion with regard to one point, and not with regard to another. The Regent Orleans laughed at charges of impiety, libertinism, extravagance, idleness, disgraceful promotions. But the slightest allusion to the charge of poisoning threw him into convulsions. Louis the Fifteenth braved the hatred and contempt of his subjects during many years of the most odious and imbecile misgovernment. But when a report was spread that he used human blood for his baths, he was almost driven mad by it. Surely Mr. Bentham's position, " that no man cares for the good opinion of those whom he has been ac customed to wrong," would be objectionable, as far too sweeping and indiscriminate, even if it did not involve, as in the present case we have shown that it does, a direct begging of the question at issue. Mr. Bentham proceeds: if they can, is a sufficient reason for the exist ence of governments. But it is not demonstrated that kings and aristocracies will plunder the people, unless it be true that all mer 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 skepticism; but what then? Are we the theory-makers? When we bring before the world a theory of government, it will be time to call upon us to offer proof at every step. At present we stand on our un doubted logical right. We concede nothing, and we deny nothing. We say to the Utilita rian theorists-When you prove your doctrine, we will believe it, and till you prove it, we will not believe it. life in trying to find out whether the Misses of | That some men will plunder their neighbours 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 in-volution, though accompanied by a great stantly 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." 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 Revo lution 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 Re 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. This passage is alone sufficient to prove tha: Mr. Bentham has not taken the trouble to read our article from beginning to end. We are We never said that the French Revolution quite sure that he would not stoop to misrepre- took place because the poor began to compare sent it. And if he had read it with any atten- their cottages and salads with the hotels and tion, he would have perceived that all this co-banquets of the rich. We were not speaking quetry, this hesitation, this Yes and No, this about the causes of the Revolution, or thinking saying and not saying, is simply an exercise about them. This we said, and say, that if a of the undeniable right which in controversy democratic government had been established belongs to the defensive side-to the side which in France, the poor, when they began to com proposes to establish nothing. The affirmative pare their cottages and salads with the hotels of the issue and the burden of the proof are and banquets of the rich, would, on the sup with Mr. Mill, not with us. We are not bound, position that Mr. Mill's principles are sound, perhaps we are not able, to show that the form have plundered the rich, and repeated, without of government which he recommends is bad. provocation, all the severities and confisca It is quite enough if we can show that he does tions which, at the time of the Revolution, not prove it to be good. In his proof, among were committed with provocation. We say many other flaws, is this-he says, that if men that Mr. Mill's favourite form of government are not inclined to plunder each other, govern- would, if his own views of human nature be ment is unnecessary, and that, if men are so just, make those violent convulsions and transinclined, kings and aristocracies will plunder fers of property which now rarely happen, ex t people. Now this, we say, is a fallacy.cept, as in the case of the French Revolution. when the people are maddened by oppression, ous to reproach him in the language which events of annual or biennial occurrence. We Mr. Bentham, in the exercise of his paternal gave no opinion of our own. We give none authority over the sect, thinks himself entitled now. We say that this proposition may be to employ. 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 deductions to be unsound throughout. "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 Mr. Bentham challenges us to prove from amount to a declaration that nobody should be history that the people will plunder the rich. rich; which, as all men wish to be rich, would What does history say to Mr. Mill's doctrine, involve a suicide of hope. And as nobody has that absolute kings will always plunder their shown a fragment of reason why such a prosubjects so unmercifully as to leave nothing ceeding should be for the general happiness, but a bare subsistence to any except their own it does not follow that the Utilitarians' would creatures! If experience is to be the test, Mr. recommend it. The Edinburgh Reviewers have Mill's theory is unsound. If Mr. Mill's reason- a waiting gentlewoman's ideas of 'Utilitarianing à priori be sound, the people in a demo-ism.' It is unsupported by any thing but the cracy will plunder the rich. Let us use one pitiabie 'We are rather inclined to think,'weight and one measure. Let us not throw and is utterly contradicted by the whole course history aside when we are proving a theory, of history and human experience besides,and take it up again when we have to refute that there is either danger or possibility of an objection founded on the principles of that such a consummation as the majority agreetheory. ing 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, 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 ask-never. It is as true now as in the days of ing 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." 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 vender 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 twc 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? 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 is unnecessary that women should vote; and for making this distinction, he gives as a reason an assertion which, in the first We never even dreamed, what Mr. Bentham place, is not true, and which, in the next place, conceives us to have maintained, that it co would, if true, overset his whole theory of be for the greatest happiness of mankind human nature; namely, that the interest of the plunder the rich. But we are "rather inclined women is identical with that of the men. We to think," though doubtingly, and with a disposide with Mr. Bentham, so far at least as this, sition to yield to conviction, that it may be for that when we join to drive the camel through the pecuniary interest of the majority of a sinthe needle, he shall go through hoof and all. gle generation in a thickly-peopled country to We at present desire to be excused from driv-plunder the rich. Why we are inclined to ing the camel. It is Mr. Mill who leaves the think so we will explain, whenever we send a hoof behind. But we should think it uncourte-theory of government to an encyclopedia. At VOL. V.-87 3 N 2 present we are bound to say only that we think so, till somebody shows us a reason for thinking otherwise. "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 observ. ing the present state of the world, by assidu ously studying the history of past ages,-by sifting the evidence of facts,-by carefully combining and contrasting those which are authentic,-by generalizing 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. Proceed ing 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.' 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 civilized 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 plunder the rich under a system of universal suffrage. than the fact, that the English kings of the House of Brunswick have 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 morseis of a plentiful kitchen, which is the case of the people of America, to the behaviour of a wolf, which is nothing but a dog run wild, after a week's fast among the snows of the Pyrenees. No commotion, says Mr. Bentham, was ever really produced by the wish of levelling: the wish has been put forward as a blind; but something else has been the real object. Grant all this. But why has levelling been put forward as a blind in times of commotion, to conceal the real objects of the agitators? Is it with declarations which involve "a suicide of hope," that men attempt to allure others? Was famine, pestilence, slavery, ever held out to attract the people? If levelling has been made a pretence for dis-lutely follow that they were in a plot to rob the turbances, the argument against Mr. Bentham's doctrine is as strong as if it had been the real object of the disturbances. But the great objection which Mr. Bentham inakes 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 Treause 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 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: "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 il! 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 abso 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 |