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it has been applied, has signally increased the of nations,-which, of all sciences, most tends power and knowledge of our species,-by that to expand and invigorate the mind,-which method for which our new philosophers would draws nutriment and ornament from every part substitute quibbles scarcely worthy of barba- of philosophy and literature, and dispenses, in rous respondents and opponents of the middle return, nutriment and ornament to all. We are ages, by the method of induction;--by observ-sorry and surprised when we see men of good ing the present state of the world, by as-intentions and good natural abilities abandon siduously studying the history of past ages, this healthful and generous study, to pore over by sifting the evidence of facts,-by carefully speculations like those which we have been combining and contrasting those which are examining. And we should heartily rejoice to authentic, by generalizing with judgment and find that our remarks had induced any person diffidence, by perpetually bringing the theory of this description, to employ, in researches of which we have constructed to the test of new real utility, the talents and industry which are facts, by correcting, or altogether abandoning now wasted on verbal sophisms, wretched of it, according as those new facts prove it to be their wretched kind. partially or fundamentally unsound. Proceeding thus,-patiently, diligently, candidly, we may hope to form a system as far inferior in pretensions 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.

This is that noble science of politics, which is equally removed from the barren theories of the Utilitarian sophists, and from the petty craft, so often mistaken for statesmanship by minds grown narrow in habits of intrigue, jobbing, and official etiquette;-which, of all sciences, is the most important to the welfare

As to the greater part of the sect, it is, we apprehend, of little consequence, what they study, or under whom. It would be more amusing, to be sure, and more reputable, if they would take up the old republican cant, and declaim about Brutus and Timoleon, the duty of killing tyrants, and the blessedness of dying for liberty. But, on the whole, they might have chosen worse. They may as well be Utilitarians as jockeys or dandies. And though quibbling about self-interest and motives, and objects of desire, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number, is but a poor employment for a grown man, it certainly hurts the health less than hard drinking, and the fortune less than high play: it is not much more laughable than phrenology, and is immeasu rably more humane than cock-fighting.

BENTHAM'S DEFENCE OF MILL."

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, JUNE, 1829.]

We have had great reason, we think, to be | gratified by the success of our late attack on the Utilitarians. We could publish a long list of the cures which it has wrought, in cases previously considered as hopeless. Delicacy forbids us to divulge names; but we cannot refrain from alluding to two remarkable instances. A respectable lady writes to inform us, that her son, who was plucked at Cambridge last January, has not been heard to call Sir James Mackintosh a poor ignorant fool more than twice since the appearance of our article. A distinguished political writer in the Westminster and Parliamentary Reviews has borrowed Hume's History, and has actually got as far as the battle of Agincourt. He assures us that he takes great pleasure in his new study, and that he is very impatient to learn how Scotland and England became one kingdom. But the greatest compliment that we have received is, that Mr. Bentham himself should have condescended to take the field in defence of Mr. Mill. We have not been in the habit of reviewing reviews; but as Mr. Bentham is a truly great man, and as his party have thought fit to announce in puffs and placards | that this article is written by him, and contains not only an answer to our attacks, but a development of the "greatest happiness principle," with the latest improvements of the author, we shall for once depart from our general rule. However the conflict may terminate, we shall at least not have been vanquished by an igno

However sharply he may speak of us, we can never cease to revere in him the father of the philosophy of Jurisprudence. He has a full right to all the privileges of a great inventor; and, in our court of criticism, those privileges will never be pleaded in vain. But they are limited in the same manner in which, fortu nately for the ends of justice, the privileges of the peerage are now limited. The advantage is personal and incommunicable. A nobleman can now no longer cover with his protection every lackey who follows his heels, or every bully who draws in his quarrel; and, highly as we respect the exalted rank which Mr. Bentham holds among the writers of our time, yet when, for the due maintenance of literary police, we shall think it necessary to confute sophists, or to bring pretenders to shame, we shall not depart from the ordinary course of our proceedings because the offenders call themselves Benthamites.

Whether Mr. Mill has much reason to thank Mr. Bentham for undertaking his defence, our readers, when they have finished this article, will perhaps be inclined to doubt. Great as Mr. Bentham's talents are, he has, we think, shown an undue confidence in them. He should have considered how dangerous it is for any man, however eloquent and ingenious he may be, to attack or to defend a book with out reading it. And we feel quite convinced that Mr. Bentham would never have written the article before us, if he had, before he be ble hand. gan, perused our review with attention, and Of Mr. Bentham himself, we shall endea-compared it with Mr. Mill's Essay. vour, even while defending ourselves against He has utterly mistaken our object and his reproaches, to speak with the respect to meaning. He seems to think that we have which his venerable age, his genius, and his undertaken to set up some theory of govern public services entitle him. If any harsh ex- ment in opposition to that of Mr. Mill. But we pression should escape us, we trust that he distinctly disclaimed any such design. From will attribute it to inadvertence, to the momen- the beginning to the end of our article, there is tary warmth of controversy,-to any thing, in not, as far as we remember, a single sentence short, rather than to a design of affronting him. which, when fairly construed, can be considered Though we have nothing in common with the as indicating any such design. If such an excrew of Hurds and Boswells, who, either from pression can be found, it has been dropped by interested motives, or from the habit of intel- inadvertence. Our object was to prove, not lectual servility and dependence, pamper and that monarchy and aristocracy are good, but vitiate his appetite with the noxious sweetness that Mr. Mill had not proved them to be bad; of their undiscerning praise, we are not per- not that democracy is bad, but that Mr. Mill haps less competent than they to appreciate had not proved it to be good. The points in his merit, or less sincerely disposed to acknow-issue are these, Whether the famous Essay on Jedge it. Though we may sometimes think his reasonings on moral and political questions feeble and sophistical-though we may sometimes smile at his extraordinary language-we can never be weary of admiring the amplitude of his comprehension, the keenness of his penetration, the exuberant fertility with which his mind pours forth arguments and illustrations.

Government be, as it has been called, a perfect solution of the great political problem, or a se ries of sophisms and blunders; and whether the sect which, while it glories in the precision of its logic, extols this Essay as a masterpiece of demonstration, be a sect deserving of the respect or of the derision of mankind. These, we say, are the issues; and on these we with full confidence put ourselves on the country.. Edinburgh Review, No. XCVII., Article on Mill's Essays investigation, that we should state what our It is not necessary, for the purposes of this

*The Westminster Review, No. XXI., Article XVI. on Government, &c.

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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 their 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 conyear 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 Now, this is certainly very pleasant writing: the rule. But this we say that a single ex- but there is no great difficulty in answering ception overthrows an argument, which either the argument. The real reason which makes does not prove the rule at all, or else proves it absurd to think of preventing theft by pen the rule to be true without exceptions; and such sioning off thieves is this, that there is no limit an argument is Mr. Mill's argument against to the number of thieves. If there were only despotism. In this respect, there is a great a hundred thieves in a place, and we were difference between rules drawn from expe- quite sure that no person not already addicted rience, and rules deduced à priori. We might to theft would take to it, it might become a believe that there had been a fall of snow last question, whether to keep the thieves from August, and yet not think it likely that there dishonesty by raising them above distress, would be snow next August. A single oc- would not be a better course than to employ currence opposed to our general experience officers against them. But the actual cases are would tell for very little in our calculation of not parallel. Every man who chooses can be the chances. But if we could once satisfy come a thief; but a man cannot become a king ourselves that, in any single right-angled tri- or a member of the aristocracy whenever he angle, the square of the hypothenuse might be chooses. The number of the depredators is less than the squares of the sides, we must re-limited; and therefore the amount of depreda ject the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid altogether. We willingly adopt Mr. Bentham's lively illustration about the wolf; and we will say, in passing, that it gives us real pleasure to see how little old age has diminished the gayety of this eminent man. We can assure him that his merriment gives us far more pleasure on his account, than pain in our own. We say with him, keep the wolf out of the nursery, in spite of the story of Romulus and Remus. But if the shepherd who saw the wolf licking and suckling those famous twins, were, after telling this story to his companions, to assert that it was an infallible rule that no wolf ever had spared, or ever would spare, 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 The word "saturation," however, seems to that wolves cannot possibly spare children. provoke Mr. Bentham's mirth. It certainly did Mr. Bentham proceeds to attack another po- not strike us as very pure English; but, as Mr. sition which he conceives us to maintain :- Mill used it, we supposed it to be good Ben "Secondly, That a government not under the thamese. With the latter language we are not control of the community (for there is no ques-critically acquainted, though, as it has many tion 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, acus, and Radamanthus, be aroused upon

tion, so far as physical pleasures are concerned, must be limited also. Now, we make the remark which Mr. Bentham censures with reference to physical pleasures only. The plea sures of ostentation, of taste, of revenge, and other pleasures of the same description, have, we distinctly allowed, no limit. Our words are these:-"A king or an aristocracy may be supplied to satiety with corporal pleasures, at an expense which the rudest and poorest community would scarcely feel." Does Mr. Bentham deny this? If he does, we leave him to Mr. Mill. "What," says that philosopher, in his Essay on Education, "what are the ordinary pursuits of wealth and power, which kindle to

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 satis fied." What the difference is between being speedily satisfied and being soon saturated, we leave Mr. Bentham and Mr. Mill to settle together.

roots in common with our mother tongue, we can contrive, by the help of a converted Utili tarian, who attends us in the capacity of Moonshee, 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.

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 an large space in the admiration of mankind." Putting Mr. Mill's and Mr. Bentham's principles together, we might make out very easily that the greatest princes, the most despotical masters of human destiny," would never abuse their power.

“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 opi-swered, pour fair parler de soi;-to occupy a nions, 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 divest ing 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 nummes contemplør in arcá,' 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."

A man who has been long accustomed to injure 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 anNow, in the first place, we never maintained other. The Regent Orleans laughed at charges the proposition which Mr. Bentham puts into of impiety, libertinism, extravagance, idleness, our mouths. We said, and say, that there is a disgraceful promotions. But the slightest alcertain check to the rapacity and cruelty of lusion to the charge of poisoning threw him men, in their desire of the good opinion of into convulsions. Louis the Fifteenth braved others. We never said that it was sufficient. the hatred and contempt of his subjects during Let Mr. Mill show it to be insufficient. It is many years of the most odious and imbecile enough for us to prove that there is a set-off misgovernment. But when a report was against the principle from which Mr. Mill de- spread that he used human blood for his baths, duces the whole theory of government. The he was almost driven mad by it. Surely Mr. balance may be, and, we believe, will be, against Bentham's position, " that no man cares for the despotism and the narrow forms of aristocracy. good opinion of those whom he has been ac But what is this to the correctness or incor-customed to wrong," would be objectionable, as rectness 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.

far too sweeping and indiscriminate, even if it did not involve, as in the present case we have showu that it does, a direct begging of the question at issue.

Mr. Bentham proceeds:

"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.'

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 take great pains, it is true, to say -they will not wrong the people, because they this, and not to say it. They shuffle and creep care for the good opinion of the people. But about, to secure a hole to escape at, if what this argument Mr. Bentham meets thus:-they they do not assert' should be found in any dewill not care for the good opinion of the peo-gree inconvenient. A man might waste his

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