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 cf police-officers. Denmark resembles one of those respectable streets, in which it is scarcely necessary to station a catchpoll, because the inhabitants would at once join to seize a thief. Yet even in such a street, we should wish to see an officer appear now and then, as his occasional superintendence would render the security more complete. And even Denmark, we think, would be better off under a constitutional form of government.

else should it be deducea!" In spite of this solemn adjuration, we shall venture to answer Mr. Bentham's question by another. How does he arrive at those principles of human nature from which he proposes to deduce the science of government? We think that we may venture to put an answer into his mouth; for in truth there is but one possible answer. He will say-By experience. But what is the extent of this experience? Is it an experience which includes experience of the conduct of men intrusted with the powers of government; or is it exclusive of that experience? If it includes experience of the manner in which men act when intrusted with the powers of government, then those principles of human nature from which the science of government is to be deduced, can only be known after going through that inductive process by which we propose to arrive at the science of government. Our knowledge of human nature, instead of being prior in order to our knowledge 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 educa tion, 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 hu man 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 infor

Mr. Mill proceeds like a director of police, who, without asking a single question about the state of his district, should give his orders thus: "My maxim is, that every man will take what he can. Every man in London would be a thief, but for the thief-takers. This is an undeniable principle of human nature. Some of my predecessors have wasted their time in inquiring about particular pawnbrokers, and particular alehouses. Experience is altogether divided. Of people placed in exactly the same situation, I see that one steals, and that another would sooner burn his hand off. Therefore I trust to the laws of human nature alone, and pronounce all men thieves alike. Let everybody, high and low, be watch-mation about the particular case before us, we ed. 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 Solomans 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. 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 was in the wrong?

are compelled to resort to cases which bear some resemblance to it. But the most satisfactory course is to obtain information about the particular case; and whenever this can be ob tained, 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 yel low 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 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

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 Mohammedanism is a false religion, we mean to deny the unity of God, which is the first article of the Mohammedan 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.

censemus eam esse demonstrandi formam, quæ 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 cætera, per media, deriventur; viâ certe compendiariâ, sed præcepiti, et ad naturam imperviâ, ad disputationes proclivi et accommodatâ. At, secundum nos, axiomata continenter et gradatim excitantur, ut non, nisi postremo loco, ad maxime Mr. Bentham gives an account of the manner generalia veniatur." Can any words more in which he arrived at the discovery of the exactly describe the political reasonings of Mr. “ 'greatest happiness principle." He then proMill than those in which Lord Bacon thus de- ceeds to describe the effects which, as he conscribes the logomachies of the schoolmen?ceives, that discovery is producing, in language 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.

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 principles 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 "Syllogismus ad principia scientiarum non mankind had jousted against each other were adhibetur, ad media axiomata frustra adhibetur, swept away, as when the sun of astronomical cum sit subtilitati naturæ longe impar. As- science arose in the full development of the sensum itaque constringit, non res. Syllogis-principle of gravitation. If the object of legismus ex propositionibus constat, propositioneslation was the greatest happiness, morality was ex verbis, verba notionum tesseræ sunt. Itaque the promotion of the same end by the conduct si notiones ipsæ, id quod basis rei est, confusæ of the individual; and by analogy, the happisint, et temere a rebus abstractæ, nihil in iis ness of the world was the morality of nations. Itaque quæ superstruuntur est firmitudinis. 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, bonæ notiones sunt: multo minus grave, leve, densum, tenue, humidum, siccum, generatio, corruptio, attrahere, fugare, elementum, materia, forma, et id genus, sed omnes phantasticæ et male terminatæ."

Substitute for the "substantia," the "generatio," the "corruptio," the "elementum," the "materia" of the old schoolmen, Mr. Mill's pain, pleasure, interest, power, objects of desire, and the words of Bacon will seem to suit the current year as well as the beginning of the seventeenth century.

We have now gone through the objections that Mr. Bentham makes to our article; and we submit ourselves on all the charges to the Judgment of the public.

The rest of Mr. Bentham's article consists of an exposition of the Utilitarian principle, or, as he decrees that it shall be called, the "greatest happiness principle." He seems to think that we have been assailing it. We never said a syllable against it. We spoke slightingly of the Utilitarian sect, as we thought of them, and think of them; but it was not for

66..... 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 bu 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 brick

layers 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 governments 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 any thing, 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 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!

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 Mr. Bentham himself allows it to be so. But if the principle be not stated in one of these two ways, we cannot imagine how it is to be stated at all. Stated in one of these ways, it is an identical proposition, true, but utterly barren of consequences. Stated in the other way, it is a contradiction in terms. Mr. Bentham has distinctly declined the absurdity. Are we then to suppose that he adopts the truism?

There are thus, it seems, two great truths which the Utilitarian philosophy is to communicate to mankind-two truths which are to produce a revolution in morals, in laws, in governments, in literature, in the whole system of life. The first of these is speculative; the second is practical. The speculative truth is, that the greatest happiness is the greatest happiness. The practical rule is very simple, for it imports merely that men should never omit, when they wish for any thing, to wish for it. or when they do any thing, to do it! It is a great comfort for us to think, that we readily assent ed 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 effœta, ad garriendum prompta, ad generandum invalida." 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.

Does Mr. Bentham's principle tend to make any man wish for any thing for which he would not have wished, or do any thing which he would not have done, if the principle had never been heard of? If not, it is an utterly useless principle. Now, every man pursues his own happiness or interest-call it which you will. If his happiness coincides with the happiness of the species, then, whether he ever heard of the "greatest happiness principle" or The doctrine of a moral sense may be very not, he will, to the best of his knowledge and unphilosophical, but we do not think that it can ability, attempt to produce the greatest happi- be proved to be pernicious. Men did not enterness of the species. But, if what he thinks tain certain desires and aversions because they his happiness be inconsistent with the greatest believed in a moral sense, but they gave the happiness of mankind, will this new principle name of moral sense to a feeling which they convert him to another frame of mind? Mr. found in their minds, however it came there. Bentham himself allows, as we have seen, that If they had given it no name at all, it would he can give no reason why a man should pro- still have influenced their actions: and it will mote the greatest happiness of others, if their not be very easy to demonstrate that it has ingreatest happiness be inconsistent with what fluenced their actions the more, because they he thinks his own. We should very much like have called it the moral sense. The theory of to know how the Utilitarian principle would the original contract is a fiction, and a very run, when reduced to one plain imperative absurd fiction; but in practice it meant, what proposition. Will it run thus-pursue your the "greatest happiness principle," if ever own happiness? This is superfluous. Every it becomes a watchword of political warfare man pursues it, according to his light, and will mean-that is to say, whatever served the always has pursued it, and always must pursue turn of those who used it. Both the one ex it. To say that a man has done any thing, is to say that he thought it for his happiness to

Bacon, Novum Organum.

pression and the other sound very well in de- were to be a radical insurrection to-morrow, bating clubs; but in the real conflicts of life, the "original contract" would stand just as well our passions and interests bid them stand aside for annual parliaments and universal suffrage. and know their place. The "greatest happi- The "Glorious Constitution" again, has meant ness principle" has always been latent under every thing in turn: the Habeas Corpus Act the words, social contract, justice, benevo- the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the lence, patriotism, liberty, and so forth, just Test Act, the Repeal of the Test Act. Thers as far as it was for the happiness, real or ima- has not been for many years a single importan gined, of those who used these words to pro- measure which has not been unconstitutional mote the greatest happiness of mankind. And with its opponents, and which its supporters of this we may be sure, that the words "the have not maintained to be agreeable to the true greatest happiness" will never, in any man's spirit of the constitution. Is it easier to ascer mouth, mean more than the greatest happiness tain what is for the greatest happiness of the of others which is consistent with what he human race than what is the constitution of thinks his own. The project of mending a bad England? If not, the "greatest happiness world, by teaching people to give new names principle" will be what the "principles of the to old things, reminds us of Walter Shandy's constitution" are, a thing to be appealed to by scheme, for compensating the loss of his son's, everybody, and understood by everybody in nose by christening him Trismegistus. What the sense which suits him best. It will mean society wants is a new motive-not a new cant. cheap bread, dear bread, free trade, protecting If Mr. Bentham can find out any argument yet duties, annual parliaments, septennial parlia undiscovered which may induce men to pursue ments, universal suffrage, Old Sarum, trial by the general happiness, he will indeed be a great jury, martial law, every thing, in short, good, bad, benefactor to our species. But those whose or indifferent, of which any person, from rahappiness is identical with the general happi-pacity or from benevolence, chooses to underness, are even now promoting the general hap- take the defence. It will mean six and eightpiness to the very best of their power and know- pence with the attorney, tithes at the rectory, ledge; and Mr. Bentham himself confesses and game-laws at the manor-house. The sta that he has no means of persuading those tute of uses, in appearance the most sweeping whose happiness is not identical with the gene- legislative reform in our history, was said to ral happiness, to act upon his principle. Is have produced no other effect than that of addnot this, then, darkening counsel by words ing three words to a conveyance. The uniwithout knowledge? If the only fruit of the versal admission of Mr. Bentham's great prin"magnificent principle" is to be, that the op- ciple would, as far as we can see, produce no pressors and pilferers of the next generation other effect than that those orators who, while are to talk of seeking the greatest happiness waiting for a meaning, gain time (like bankers of the greatest number, just as the same class paying in sixpences during a run) by uttering of men have talked in our time of seeking to words that mean nothing, would substitute uphold the Protestant Constitution-just as "the greatest happiness," or rather, as the they talked under Anne of seeking the good longer phrase, "the greatest happiness of the of the Church, and under Cromwell, of seek-greatest number,” for, “ under existing circuming the Lord-where is the gain? Is not every stances."-"now that I am on my legs,"—and, great question already enveloped in a saffi- " Mr. Speaker, I, for one, am free to say." In ciently 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 school 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 happines 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-ordipate authority of the Three Estates. If there

fact, principles of this sort resemble those forms which are sold by law-stationers, with blanks for the names of parties, and for the specia! 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 every thing 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. Under. stood 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 philoso phy, unless it were accompanied by a sanction. In the Christian scheme, accordingly, it is ac companied 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.

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 be tween the judicious friends of practical reform and a sect which, having derived all its influence from the countenance which they have impru dently 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 an Utilitarianism.

This is practical philosophy, as practical as that on which penal legislation is founded. A man is told to do something which otherwise he would not do, and is furnished with a new motive for doing it. Mr. Bentham has no new motive to furnish his disciples with. He has talents sufficient to effect any thing that can be effected. But to induce men to act without an inducement is too much even for him. He should reflect that the whole vast world of morals cannot be moved, unless the mover can obtain some stand for his engines beyond it. He acts as Archimedes would have done, if he had attempted to move the earth by a ever fixed on the earth. The action and reaction neutralize 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, à 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 with 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 every-which, for his sake, we have treated with far body knows, and recommends what everybody does.

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

greater lenity than it deserved. The mistake, however, does not in the least affect any part It is not upon this "greatest happiness prin- of our arguments; and we have therefore ciple" that the fame of Mr. Bentham will rest. thought it unnecessary to cancel or cast anew He has not taught people to pursue their own any of the foregoing pages. Indeed, we are happiness; for that they always did. He has not sorry that the world should see how renot taught them to promote the happiness of spectfully we were disposed to treat a great others at the expense of their own; for that they man, even when we considered him as the auwill not and cannot do. But he has taught thor of a very weak and very unfair attack on them how, in some most important points, to ourselves. We wish, however, to intimate to promote their own happiness; and if his school the actual writer of that attack, that our civilihad emulated him as successfully in this re-ties were intended for the author of the spect 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 any thing 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

"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 endea vour to find better editors for his compositions If M. Dumont had not been a rédacteur of a dif ferent description from some of his successors, Mr. Bentham would never have attained the distinction of even giving his name to a sect