ness of the greatest number, is held out the prospect of an infinite happiness hereafter, from which he excludes himself by wronging his fellow-creatures here.

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

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 anda sect which, having derived all its influence from the countenance which they have imprů. 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.

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 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

If we assume that the object of government is the preservation of the persons and property of men, then we must hold that, wherever that object is attained, there the principle of good government exists. If that object he attained both in Denmark and in the United States of America, then that which makes government good must exist, under whatever disguise of title or name, both in Denmark and in the United States. If men lived in fear for their lives and their possessions under Nero and under the National Convention, it follows that the causes from which misgovernment proceeds, existed both in the despotism of Rome, and in the democracy of France. What, then, is that which, being found in Denmark and in the United States, and not being found in the Roman empire, or under the administration of Robespierre, renders governments, widely differing in their external form, practically good? Be it what it may, it certainly is not that which Mr. Mill proves à priori that it must be,-a democratic representative assembly. For the Danes have no such assembly.

The latent principle of good government ought to be tracked, as it appears to us, in the same manner in which Lord Bacon proposed to track the principle of heat. Make as large a list as possible, said that great man, of those bodies in which, however widely they differ from each other in appearance, we perceive heat; and as large a list as possible of those which, while they bear a general resemblance to hot bodies, are, nevertheless, not hot. Observe the different degrees of heat in different hot bodies, and then, if there be something which is found in all hot bodies, and of which the increase or diminution is always accompanied by an increase or diminution of heat, we may hope that we have really discovered the object of our search. In the same manner, we ought to examine the constitution of all those communities in which, under whatever form, the blessings of good government are enjoyed; and to discover, if possible, in what they resemble each other, and in what they all differ from those societies in which the object of government is not attained. By proceeding thus we shall arrive, not indeed at a perfect theory of government, but at a theory which will be of great practical use, and which the experience of every successive generation will probably bring nearer and nearer to perfection. The inconsistencies into which Mr. Mill has been betrayed, by taking a different course, ought to serve as a warning to all speculators. Because Denmark is well governed by a monarch, who, in appearance at least, is absolute, Mr. Mill thinks, that the only mode of arriving at the true principles of government, is to deduce them à priori from the laws of human nature. And what conclusion does he bring out by this deduction? We will give it in his own words:-" In the grand discovery of modern times, the system of representation, the solution of all the difficulties, both speculative and practical, will perhaps be found. If it cannot, we seem to be forced upon the extraordinary VOL. V.-88

out a representation, is a reason for deducing the theory of government from a general principle, from which it necessarily follows, that good government is impossible without a representation! We have done our best to put this question plainly; and we think, that if the Westminster Reviewer will read over what we have written, twice or thrice with patience and attention, some glimpse of our meaning will break in, even on his mind.

Scme objections follow, so frivolous and unfair, that we are almost ashamed to notice them.

"When it was said that there was in Denmark a balanced contest between the king and the nobility, what was said was, that there was a balanced contest, but it did not last. It was balanced till something put an end to the balance; and so is every thing else. That such a balance will not last, is precisely what Mr. Mill had demonstrated."

Mr. Mill, we positively affirm, pretends to demonstrate, not merely that a balanced contest between the king and the aristocracy will not last, but that the chances are as infinity to one against the existence of such a balanced contest. This is a mere question of fact: We quote the words of the Essay, and defy the Westminster Reviewer to impeach our accuracy :

"It seems impossible that such equality should ever exist. How is it to be established? Or by what criterion is it to be ascertained? If there is no such criterion, it must, in all cases, be the result of chance. If so, the chances against it are as infinity to one."

The Reviewer has confounded the division of power with the balance or equal division of power. Mr. Mill says, that the division of power can never exist long, because it is next to impossible that the equal division of power should ever exist at all.

"When Mr. Mill asserted that it cannot be for the interest of either the monarchy or the aristocracy to combine with the democracy, it is plain he did not assert that if the monarchy and aristocracy were in doubtful contest with each other, they would not, either of them, accept of the assistance of the democracy. He spoke of their taking the side of the democracy; not of their allowing the democracy to take side with themselves."

If Mr. Mill meant any thing, he must have meant this-that the monarchy and the aristocracy will never forget their enmity to the democracy, in their enmity to each other.

"The monarchy and aristocracy," says he, "have all possible motives for endeavouring to obtain unlimited power over the persons and property of the community. The consequence is inevitable. They have all possible motives for combining to obtain that power, and unless the people have power enough to be a match for both, they have no protection. The balance, therefore, is a thing, the existence of which, upon the best possible evidence, is to be regarded as impossible."

If Mr. Mill meant only what the Westminster Reviewer conceives him to have meant, his

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argument would leave the popular theory of the balance quite untouched. For it is the very theory of the balance, that the help of the people will be solicited by the nobles when hard pressed by the king, and by the king when hard pressed by the nobles; and that, as the price of giving alternate support to the crown and the aristocracy, they will obtain something for themselves, as the reviewer admits that they have done in Denmark. If Mr. Mill admits this, he admits the only theory of the balance of which we never heard that very theory which he has declared to be wild and chimerical. If he denies it, he is at issue with the Westminster Reviewer as to the phenomena of the Danish government.

We now come to a more important passage. Our opponent has discovered, as he conceives, a radical error which runs through our whole argument, and vitiates every part of it. We suspect that we shall spoil his triumph.

"Mr. Mill never asserted that under no despotic government does any human being, except the tools of the sovereign, possess more than the necessaries of life, and that the most intense degree of terror is kept up by constant cruelty. He said that absolute power leads to such results, by infallible sequence, where power over a community is attained, and nothing checks.' The critic on the Mount never made a more palpable misquotation.

"The spirit of this misquotation runs through every part of the reply of the Edinburgh Review that relates to the Essay on Government; and is repeated in as many shapes as the Roman Pork. The whole description of Mr. Mill's argument against despotism,'-including the illustration from right-angled triangles and the square of the hypothenuse, is founded on this invention of saying what an author has not said, and leaving unsaid what he has."

We thought, and still think, for reasons which our readers will soon understand, that we represented Mr. Mill's principle quite fairly, and according to the rule and law of common sense, ut res magis valeat quam pereat. Let us, however, give him all the advantage of the explanation tendered by his advocate, and see what he will gain by it.

The Utilitarian doctrine then is, not that despots and aristocracies will always oppress and plunder the people to the last point, but that they will do so if nothing checks them.

In the first place, it is quite clear that the doctrine thus stated, is of no use at all, unless the force of the checks be estimated. The first law of motion is, that a ball once pro

some motive interferes to keep them from do ing so.

If there be, as the Westminster Reviewer acknowledges, certain checks which, under political institutions the most arbitrary in seeming, sometimes produce good government, and almost always place some restraint on the ra pacity and cruelty of the powerful; surely the knowledge of those checks, of their nature, and of their effect, must be a most important part of the science of government. Does Mr. Mill say any thing upon this part of the subject? Not one word.

The line of defence now taken by the Utilitarians evidently degrades Mr. Mill's theory of government from the rank which, till within the last few months, was claimed for it by the whole sect. It is no longer a practical system, fit to guide statesmen, but merely a barren ex ercise of the intellect, like those propositions in mechanics in which the effect of friction and of the resistance of the air is left out of the question; and which, therefore, though cor rectly deduced from the premises, are in praetice utterly false. For if Mr. Mill professes to prove only that absolute monarchy and aristocracy are pernicious without checks, if he allows that there are checks which produce good government, even under absolute mo narchs and aristocracies, and if he omits to tell us what those checks are, and what effects they produce under different circumstances, he surely gives us no information which can be of real utility.

But the fact is, and it is most extraordinary that the Westminster Reviewer should not have perceived it, that if once the existence of checks on the abuse of power in monarchies and aristocracies be admitted, the whole of Mr. Mill's theory falls to the ground at once. This is so palpable, that in spite of the opinion of the Westminster Reviewer, we must acquit Me. Mill of having intended to make such an admission. We still think that the words, "where power over a community is attained, and nothing checks," must not be understood to mean, that under a monarchical or aristocratical form of government there can really be any check which can in any degree mitigate the wretchedness of the people.

For, all possible checks may be classed un der two general heads, want of will, and want of power. Now, if a king or an aristocracy having the power to plunder and oppress the people, can want the will, all Mr. Mill's principles of human nature must be pronounced unsound. He tells us, "that the desire to pos

motion. Every man would wring his child's neck, and pick his friend's pocket, if nothing checked him. In fact, the principle thus stated, means only that government will oppress, unless they abstain from oppressing. This is quite true, we own. But we might with equal propriety turn the maxim round, and lay it down as the fundamental principle of governmert, that all rulers will govern well, unless

sion that those who possess this power will always desire to use it. It is plain, therefore, that, if Mr. Mill's principles be sound, the check on a monarchical or an aristocratical government will not be the want of will to oppress.

If a king or an aristocracy, having. as Mr. Mill tells us that they always must have, the will to oppress the people with the utmost severity want the power, then the government, by what