Jeremy Bentham.

The general scheme of this Dissertation would be a sufficient reason for omitting the name of a living writer. The devoted attachment and invincible repugnance which an impartial estimate of Mr. Bentham has to encounter on either side, are a strong inducement not to deviate from that scheme in his case. But the most brief sketch of ethical controversy in England would be imperfect without it; and perhaps the utter hopelessness of finding any expedient for satisfying his followers, or softening his opponents, may enable a writer to look steadily and solely at what he believes to be the dictates of Truth and Justice. He who has spoken of former philosophers with unreserved freedom, ought perhaps to subject his courage and honesty to the severest test by an attempt to characterize such a contemporary. Should the very few who are at once enlightened and unbiassed be of opinion that his firmness and equity have stood this trial, they will be the more disposed to trust his fairness where the exercise of that quality may have been more easy.

The disciples of Mr. Bentham are more like the hearers of an Athenian philosopher than the pupils of a modern professor, or the cool proselytes of a modern writer. They are in general men of competent age, of superior understanding, who voluntarily embrace the laborious study of useful and noble sciences; who derive their opinions, not so much from the cold perusal of his writings, as from familiar converse with a master from whose lips these opinions are recommended by simplicity, disinterestedness, originality, and vivacity,—aided rather than impeded by foibles not unamiable,—enforced of late by the growing authority of years and of fame, and at all times strengthened by that undoubting reliance on his own judgment which mightily increases the ascendant of such a man over those who approach him. As he and they deserve the credit of braving vulgar prejudices, so they must be content to incur the imputation of falling into the neighbouring vices of seeking distinction by singularity,—of clinging to opinions, because they are obnoxious,—of wantonly wounding the most respectable feelings of mankind,—of regarding an immense display of method and nomenclature as a sure token of a corresponding increase of knowledge,—and of considering themselves as a chosen few, whom an initiation into the most secret mysteries of Philosophy entitles to look down with pity, if not contempt, on the profane multitude. Viewed with aversion or dread by the public, they become more bound to each other and to their master; while they are provoked into the use of language which more and more exasperates opposition to them. A hermit in the greatest of cities, seeing only his disciples, and indignant that systems of government and law which he believes to be perfect, are disregarded at once by the many and the powerful, Mr. Bentham has at length been betrayed into the most unphilosophical hypothesis, that all the ruling bodies who guide the community have conspired to stifle and defeat his discoveries. He is too little acquainted with doubts to believe the honest doubts of others, and he is too angry to make allowance for their prejudices and habits. He has embraced the most extreme party in practical politics;—manifesting more dislike and contempt towards those who are moderate supporters of popular principles than towards their most inflexible opponents. To the unpopularity of his philosophical and political doctrines, he has added the more general and lasting obloquy due to the unseemly treatment of doctrines and principles which, if there were no other motives for reverential deference, ought, from a regard to the feelings of the best men, to be approached with decorum and respect.

Fifty-three years have passed since the publication of Mr. Bentham’s first work, A Fragment on Government,—a considerable octavo volume, employed in the examination of a short paragraph of Blackstone, unmatched in acute hypercriticism, but conducted with a severity which leads to an unjust estimate of the writer criticised, till the like experiment be repeated on other writings. It was a waste of extraordinary power to employ it in pointing out flaws and patches in the robe occasionally stolen from the philosophical schools, which hung loosely, and not unbecomingly, on the elegant commentator. This volume, and especially the preface abounds in fine, original, and just observation; it contains the germs of most of his subsequent productions, and it is an early example of that disregard for the method, proportions, and occasion of a writing which, with all common readers, deeply affects its power of interesting or instructing. Two years after, he published a most excellent tract on the Hard Labour Bill, which, concurring with the spirit excited by Howard’s inquiries, laid the foundation of just reasoning on reformatory punishment. The Letters on Usury, are perhaps the best specimen of the exhaustive discussion of a moral or political question, leaving no objection, however feeble, unanswered, and no difficulty, however small, unexplained;—remarkable also, as they are, for the clearness and spirit of the style, for the full exposition which suits them to all intelligent readers, and for the tender and skilful hand with which prejudice is touched. The urbanity of the apology for projectors, addressed to Dr. Smith, whose temper and manner the author seems for a time to have imbibed, is admirable.

The Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Politics, printed before the Letters, but published after them, was the first sketch of his system, and is still the only account of it by himself. The great merit of this work, and of his other writings in relation to Jurisprudence properly so called, is not within our present scope. To the Roman jurists belongs the praise of having alloted a separate portion of their Digest to the signification of the words of the most frequent use in law and legal discussion. Mr. Bentham not only first perceived and taught the great value of an introductory section, composed of the definitions of general terms, as subservient to brevity and precision in every part of a code; but he also discovered the unspeakable importance of natural arrangement in Jurisprudence, by rendering the mere place of a proposed law in such an arrangement a short and easy test of the fitness of the proposal.

But here he does not distinguish between the value of arrangement as scaffolding, and the inferior convenience of its being the very frame-work of the structure. He, indeed, is much more remarkable for laying down desirable rules for the determination of rights, and the punishment of wrongs, in general, than for weighing the various circumstances which require them to be modified in different countries and times, in order to render them either more useful, more easily introduced, more generally respected, or more certainly executed. The art of legislation consists in thus applying the principles of Jurisprudence to the situation, wants, interests, feelings, opinions, and habits, of each distinct community at any given time. It bears the same relation to Jurisprudence which the mechanical arts bear to pure Mathematics. Many of these considerations serve to show, that the sudden establishment of new codes can seldom be practicable or effectual for their purpose; and that reformations, though founded on the principles of Jurisprudence, ought to be not only adapted to the peculiar interests of a people, but engrafted on their previous usages, and brought into harmony with those national dispositions on which the execution of laws depends. The Romans, under Justinian, adopted at least the true principle, if they did not apply it with sufficient freedom and boldness. They considered the multitude of occasional laws, and the still greater mass of usages, opinions, and determinations, as the materials of legislation, not precluding, but demanding a systematic arrangement of the whole by the supreme authority. Had the arrangement been more scientific, had there been a bolder examination and a more free reform of many particular branches, a model would have been offered for liberal imitation by modern lawgivers. It cannot be denied, without injustice and ingratitude, that Mr. Bentham has done more than any other writer to rouse the spirit of juridical reformation, which is now gradually examining every part of law, and which, when further progress is facilitated by digesting the present laws, will doubtless proceed to the improvement of all. Greater praise it is given to few to earn: it ought to satisfy him for the disappointment of hopes which were not reasonable, that Russia should receive a code from him, or that North America could be brought to renounce the variety of her laws and institutions, on the single authority of a foreign philosopher, whose opinions had not worked their way, either into legislation or into general reception, in his own country. It ought also to dispose his followers to do fuller justice to the Romillys and Broughams, without whose prudence and energy, as well as reason and eloquence, the best plans of reformation must have continued a dead letter;—for whose sake it might have been fit to reconsider the obloquy heaped on their profession, and to show more general indulgence to all those whose chief offence seems to consist in their doubts whether sudden changes, almost always imposed by violence on a community, be the surest road to lasting improvement.

It is unfortunate that ethical theory, with which we are now chiefly concerned, is not the province in which Mr. Bentham has reached the most desirable distinction. It may be remarked, both in ancient and in modern times, that whatever modifications prudent followers may introduce into the system of an innovator, the principles of the master continue to mould the habitual dispositions, and to influence the practical tendency of the school. Mr. Bentham preaches the principle of Utility with the zeal of a discoverer. Occupied more in reflection than in reading, he knew not, or forgot, how often it had been the basis, and how generally an essential part, of all moral systems. That in which he really differs from others, is in the Necessity which he teaches, and the example which he sets, of constantly bringing that principle before us. This peculiarity appears to us to be his radical error. In an attempt, of which the constitution of human nature forbids the success, he seems to us to have been led into fundamental errors in moral theory, and to have given to his practical doctrine a dangerous direction.

The confusion of moral approbation with the moral qualities which are its objects, common to Mr. Bentham with many other philosophers, is much more uniform and prominent in him than in most others. This general error, already mentioned at the opening of this Dissertation, has led him more than others to assume, that because the principle of Utility forms a necessary part of every moral theory, it ought therefore to be the chief motive of human conduct. Now it is evident that this assumption, rather tacitly than avowedly made, is wholly gratuitous. No practical conclusion can be deduced from the principle, but that we ought to cultivate those habitual dispositions which are the most effectual motives to useful actions. But before a regard to our own interest, or a desire to promote the welfare of men in general, be allowed to be the exclusive, or even the chief regulators of human conduct, it must be shown that they are the most effectual motives to such useful actions: it is demonstrated by experience that they are not. It is even owned by the most ingenious writers of Mr. Bentham’s school, that desires which are pointed to general and distant objects, although they have their proper place and their due value, are commonly very faint and ineffectual inducements to action. A theory founded on Utility, therefore, requires that we should cultivate, as excitements to practice, those other habitual dispositions which we know by experience to be generally the source of actions beneficial to ourselves and our fellows;—habits of feeling productive of habits of virtuous conduct, and in their turn strengthened by the re-action of these last. What is the result of experience on the choice of the objects of moral culture? Beyond all dispute, that we should labour to attain that state of mind in which all the social affections are felt with the utmost warmth, giving birth to more comprehensive benevolence, but not supplanted by it;—when the Moral Sentiments most strongly approve what is right and good, without being perplexed by a calculation of consequences, though not incapable of being gradually rectified by Reason, whenever they are decisively proved by experience not to correspond in some of their parts to the universal and perpetual effects of conduct. It is a false representation of human nature to affirm that “courage” is only “prudence.” They coincide in their effects, and it is always prudent to be courageous: but a man who fights because he thinks it more hazardous to yield, is not brave. He does not become brave till he feels cowardice to be base and painful, and till he is no longer in need of any aid from prudence. Even if it were the interest of every man to be bold, it is clear that so cold a consideration cannot prevail over the fear of danger. Where it seems to do so, it must be the unseen power either of the fear of shame, or of some other powerful passion, to which it lends its name. It was long ago with striking justice observed by Aristotle, that he who abstains from present gratification, under a distinct apprehension of its painful consequences, is only prudent, and that he must acquire a disrelish for excess on its own account, before he deserves the name of a temperate man. It is only when the means are firmly and unalterably converted into ends, that the process of forming the mind is completed. Courage may then seek, instead of avoiding danger: Temperance may prefer abstemiousness to indulgence: Prudence itself may choose an orderly government of conduct, according to certain rules, without regard to the degree in which it promotes welfare. Benevolence must desire the happiness of others, to the exclusion of the consideration how far it is connected with that of the benevolent agent; and those alone can be accounted just who obey the dictates of Justice from having thoroughly learned an habitual veneration for her strict rules and for her larger precepts. In that complete state the mind possesses no power of dissolving the combinations of thought and feeling which impel it to action. Nothing in this argument turns on the difference between implanted and acquired principles. As no man can cease, by any act of his, to see distance, though the power of seeing it be universally acknowledged to be an acquisition, so no man has the power to extinguish the affections and the moral sentiments, (however much they may be thought to be acquired,) any more than that of eradicating the bodily appetites. The best writers of Mr. Bentham’s school overlook the indissolubility of these associations, and appear not to bear in mind that their strength and rapid action constitute the perfect state of a moral agent.

The pursuit of our own general welfare, or of that of mankind at large, though from their vagueness and coldness they are unfit habitual motives and unsafe ordinary guides of conduct, yet perform functions of essential importance in the moral system. The former, which we call “self-love,” preserves the balance of all the active principles which regard ourselves ultimately, and contributes to subject them to the authority of the moral principles. The latter, which is general benevolence, regulates in like manner the equipoise of the narrower affections,—quickens the languid, and checks the encroaching,—borrows strength from pity, and even from indignation,—receives some compensation, as it enlarges, in the addition of beauty and grandeur, for the weakness which arises from dispersion,—enables us to look on all men as brethren, and overflows on every sentient being. The general interest of mankind, in truth, almost solely affects us through the affections of benevolence and sympathy, for the coincidence of general with individual interest,—even where it is certain,—is too dimly seen to produce any emotion which can impel to, or restrain from action. As a general truth, its value consists in its completing the triumph of Morality, by demonstrating the absolute impossibility of forming any theory of human nature which does not preserve the superiority of Virtue over Vice;—a great, though not a directly practical advantage.

The followers of Mr. Bentham have carried to an unusual extent the prevalent fault of the more modern advocates of Utility, who have dwelt so exclusively on the outward advantages of Virtue as to have lost sight of the delight which is a part of virtuous feeling, and of the beneficial influence of good actions upon the frame of the mind. “Benevolence towards others,” says Mr. Mill, “produces a return of benevolence from them.” The fact is true, and ought to be stated: but how unimportant is it in comparison with that which is passed over in silence,—the pleasure of the affection itself, which, if it could become lasting and intense, would convert the heart into a heaven! No one who has ever felt kindness, if he could accurately recall his feelings, could hesitate about their infinite superiority. The cause of the general neglect of this consideration is, that it is only when a gratification is something distinct from a state of mind, that we can easily learn to consider it as a pleasure. Hence the great error respecting the affections, where the inherent delight is not duly estimated, on account of that very pecularity of its being a part of a state of mind which renders it unspeakably more valuable as independent of every thing without. The social affections are the only principles of human nature which have no direct pains: to have any of these desires is to be in a state of happiness. The malevolent passions have properly no pleasures; for that attainment of their purpose which is improperly so called, consists only in healing or assuaging the torture which envy, jealousy, and malice, inflict on the malignant mind. It might with as much propriety be said that the toothache and the stone have pleasures, because their removal is followed by an agreeable feeling. These bodily disorders, indeed, are often cured by the process which removes the sufferings; but the mental distempers of envy and revenge are nourished by every act of odious indulgence which for a moment suspends their pain.

The same observation is applicable to every virtuous disposition, though not so obviously as to the benevolent affections. That a brave man is, on the whole, far less exposed to danger than a coward, is not the chief advantage of a courageous temper. Great dangers are rare; but the constant absence of such painful and mortifying sensations as those of fear, and the steady consciousness of superiority to what subdues ordinary men, are a perpetual source of inward enjoyment. No man who has ever been visited by a gleam of magnanimity, can place any outward advantage of fortitude in comparison with the feeling of being always able fearlessly to defend a righteous cause. Even humility, in spite of first appearances, is a remarkable example:—though it has of late been unwarrantably used to signify that painful consciousness of inferiority which is the first stage of envy. It is a term consecrated in Christian Ethics to denote that disposition which, by inclining towards a modest estimate of our qualities, corrects the prevalent tendency of human nature to overvalue our merits and to overrate our claims. What can be a less doubtful, or a much more considerable blessing than this constant sedative, which soothes and composes the irritable passions of vanity and pride? What is more conducive to lasting peace of mind than the consciousness of proficiency in that most delicate species of equity which, in the secret tribunal of Conscience, labours to be impartial in the comparison of ourselves with others? What can so perfectly assure us of the purity of our Moral Sense, as the habit of contemplating, not that excellence which we have reached, but that which is still to be pursued,—of not considering how far we may outrun others, but how far we are from the goal?

Virtue has often outward advantages, and always inward delights: but the last, though constant, strong, inaccessible and inviolable, are not easily considered by the common observer as apart from the form with which they are blended. They are so subtile and evanescent as to escape the distinct contemplation of all but the very few who meditate on the acts of the mind. The outward advantages, on the other hand,—cold, uncertain, dependent and precarious as they are,—yet stand out to the sense and to the memory, may be as it were handled and counted, and are perfectly on a level with the general apprehension. Hence they have become the almost exclusive theme of all moralists who profess to follow Reason. There is room for suspecting that a very general illusion prevails on this subject. Probably the smallest part of the pleasure of Virtue, because it is the most palpable, has become the sign and mental representative of the whole: the outward and visible sign suggests only insensibly the inward and mental delight. Those who are prone to display chiefly the external benefits of magnanimity and kindness, would speak with far less fervour, and perhaps less confidence, if their feelings were not unconsciously affected by the mental state which is overlooked in their statements. But when they speak of what is without, they feel what was within, and their words excite the same feeling in others.

Is it not probable that much of our love of praise may be thus ascribed to humane and sociable pleasure in the sympathy of others with us? Praise is the symbol which represents sympathy, and which the mind insensibly substitutes for it in recollection and in language. Does not the desire of posthumous fame, in like manner, manifest an ambition for the fellow-feeling of our race, when it is perfectly unproductive of any advantage to ourselves? In this point of view, it may be considered as the passion the very existence of which proves the mighty power of disinterested desire. Every other pleasure from sympathy is derived from contemporaries: the love of fame alone seeks the sympathy of unborn generations, and stretches the chain which binds the race of man together, to an extent to which Hope sets no bounds. There is a noble, even if unconscious union of Morality with genius in the mind of him who sympathizes with the masters who lived twenty centuries before him, in order that he may learn to command the sympathies of the countless generations who are to come.

In the most familiar, as well as in the highest instances, it would seem, that the inmost thoughts and sentiments of men are more pure than their language. Those who speak of “a regard to character,” if they be serious, generally infuse into that word, unawares, a large portion of that sense in which it denotes the frame of the mind. Those who speak of “honour” very often mean a more refined and delicate sort of conscience, which ought to render the more educated classes of society alive to such smaller wrongs as the laborious and the ignorant can scarcely feel. What heart does not warm at the noble exclamation of the ancient poet: “Who is pleased by false honour, or frightened by lying infamy, but he who is false and depraved!” Every uncorrupted mind feels unmerited praise as a bitter reproach, and regards a consciousness of demerit as a drop of poison in the cup of honour. How different is the applause which truly delights us all, a proof that the consciences of others are in harmony with our own! “What,” says Cicero, “is glory but the concurring praise of the good, the unbought approbation of those who judge aright of excellent Virtue!” A far greater than Cicero rises from the purest praise of man, to more sublime contemplations.

Those who have most earnestly inculcated the doctrine of Utility have given another notable example of the very vulgar prejudice which treats the unseen as insignificant. Tucker is the only one of them who occasionally considers that most important effect of human conduct which consists in its action on the frame of the mind, by fitting its faculties and sensibilities for their appointed purpose. A razor or a penknife would well enough cut cloth or meat; but if they were often so used, they would be entirely spoiled. The same sort of observation is much more strongly applicable to habitual dispositions, which, if they be spoiled, we have no certain means of replacing or mending. Whatever act, therefore, discomposes the moral machinery of Mind, is more injurious to the welfare of the agent than most disasters from without can be: for the latter are commonly limited and temporary; the evil of the former spreads through the whole of life. Health of mind, as well as of body, is not only productive in itself of a greater amount of enjoyment than arises from other sources, but is the only condition of our frame in which we are capable of receiving pleasure from without. Hence it appears how incredibly absurd it is to prefer, on grounds of calculation, a present interest to the preservation of those mental habits on which our well-being depends. When they are most moral, they may often prevent us from obtaining advantages: but it would be as absurd to desire to lower them for that reason, as it would be to weaken the body, lest its strength should render it more liable to contagious disorders of rare occurrence.

It is, on the other hand, impossible to combine the benefit of the general habit with the advantages of occasional deviation; for every such deviation either produces remorse, or weakens the habit, and prepares the way for its gradual destruction. He who obtains a fortune by the undetected forgery of a will, may indeed be honest in his other acts; but if he had such a scorn of fraud before as he must himself allow to be generally useful, he must suffer a severe punishment from contrition; and he will be haunted with the fears of one who has lost his own security for his good conduct. In all cases, if they be well examined, his loss by the distemper of his mental frame will outweigh the profits of his vice.

By repeating the like observation on similar occasions, it will be manifest that the infirmity of recollection, aggravated by the defects of language, gives an appearance of more selfishness to man than truly belongs to his nature; and that the effect of active agents upon the habitual state of mind,—one of the considerations to which the epithet “sentimental” has of late been applied in derision,—is really among the most serious and reasonable objects of Moral Philosophy. When the internal pleasures and pains which accompany good and bad feelings, or rather form a part of them, and the internal advantages and disadvantages which follow good and bad actions, are sufficiently considered, the comparative importance of outward consequences will be more and more narrow; so that the Stoical philosopher may be thought almost excusable for rejecting it altogether, were it not an almost indispensably necessary consideration for those in whom right habits of feeling are not sufficiently strong. They alone are happy, or even truly virtuous, who have little need of it.

The later moralists who adopt the principle of Utility, have so misplaced it, that in their hands it has as great a tendency as any theoretical error can have, to lessen the intrinsic pleasure of Virtue, and to unfit our habitual feelings for being the most effectual inducements to good conduct. This is the natural tendency of a discipline which brings Utility too closely and frequently into contact with action. By this habit, in its best state, an essentially weaker motive is gradually substituted for others which must always be of more force. The frequent appeal to Utility as the standard of action tends to introduce an uncertainty with respect to the conduct of other men, which would render all intercourse with them insupportable. It affords also so fair a disguise for selfish and malignant passions, as often to hide their nature from him who is their prey. Some taint of these mean and evil principles will at least spread itself, and a venomous animation, not its own, will be given to the cold desire of Utility. Moralists who take an active part in those affairs which often call out unamiable passions, ought to guard with peculiar watchfulness against such self-delusions. The sin that must most easily beset them, is that of sliding from general to particular consequences,—that of trying single actions, instead of dispositions, habits, and rules, by the standard of Utility,—that of authorizing too great a latitude for discretion and policy in moral conduct,—that of readily allowing exceptions to the most important rules,—that of too lenient a censure of the use of doubtful means, when the end seems to them good,—and that of believing unphilosophically, as well as dangerously, that there can be any measure or scheme so useful to the world as the existence of men who would not do a base thing for any public advantage. It was said of Andrew Fletcher, “that he would lose his life to serve his country, but would not do a base thing to save it.” Let those preachers of Utility who suppose that such a man sacrifices ends to means, consider whether the scorn of baseness be not akin to the contempt of danger and whether a nation composed of such men would not be invincible. But theoretical principles are counteracted by a thousand causes, which confine their mischief as well as circumscribe their benefits. Men are never so good or so bad as their opinions. All that can be with reason apprehended is, that these last may always produce some part of their natural evil, and that the mischief will be greatest among the many who seek excuses for their passions. Aristippus found in the Socratic representation of the union of virtue and happiness a pretext for sensuality; and many Epicureans became voluptuaries in spite of the example of their master,—easily dropping by degrees the limitations by which he guarded his doctrines. In proportion as a man accustoms himself to be influenced by the utility of particular acts, without regard to rules, he approaches to the casuistry of the Jesuits, and to the practical maxims of Cæsar Borgia.

Injury on this, as on other occasions, has been suffered by Ethics, from their close affinity to Jurisprudence. The true and eminent merit of Mr. Bentham is that of a reformer of Jurisprudence: he is only a moralist with a view to being a jurist; and he sometimes becomes for a few hurried moments a metaphysician with a view to laying the foundation of both the moral sciences. Both he and his followers have treated Ethics too juridically: they do not seem to be aware, or at least they do not bear constantly in mind, that there is an essential difference in the subjects of these two sciences.

The object of law is the prevention of actions injurious to the community: it considers the dispositions from which they flow only indirectly, to ascertain the likelihood of their recurrence, and thus to determine the necessity and the means of preventing them. The direct object of Ethics is only mental disposition: it considers actions indirectly as the signs by which such dispositions are manifested. If it were possible for the mere moralist to see that a moral and amiable temper was the mental source of a bad action, he could not cease to approve and love the temper, as we sometimes presume to suppose may be true of the judgments of the Searcher of Hearts. Religion necessarily coincides with Morality in this respect; and it is the peculiar distinction of Christianity that it places the seat of Virtue in the heart. Law and Ethics are necessarily so much blended, that in many intricate combinations the distinction becomes obscure: but in all strong cases the difference is evident. Thus, law punishes the most sincerely repentant; but wherever the soul of the penitent can be thought to be thoroughly purified, Religion and Morality receive him with open arms.

It is needless, after these remarks, to observe, that those whose habitual contemplation is directed to the rules of action, are likely to underrate the importance of feeling and disposition;—an error of very unfortunate consequences, since the far greater part of human actions flow from these neglected sources; while the law interposes only in cases which may be called exceptions, which are now rare, and ought to be less frequent.

The coincidence of Mr. Bentham’s school with the ancient Epicureans in the disregard of the pleasures of taste and of the arts dependent on imagination, is a proof both of the inevitable adherence of much of the popular sense of the words “interest” and “pleasure,” to the same words in their philosophical acceptation, and of the pernicious influence of narrowing Utility to mere visible and tangible objects, to the exclusion of those which form the larger part of human enjoyment.

The mechanical philosophers who, under Descartes and Gassendi, began to reform Physics in the seventeenth century, attempted to explain all the appearances of nature by an immediate reference to the figure of particles of matter impelling each other in various directions, and with unequal force, but in all other points alike. The communication of motion by impulse they conceived to be perfectly simple and intelligible. It never occurred to them, that the movement of one ball when another is driven against it, is a fact of which no explanation can be given which will amount to more than a statement of its constant occurrence. That no body can act where it is not, appeared to them as self-evident as that the whole is equal to all the parts. By this axiom they understood that no body moves another without touching it. They did not perceive, that it was only self-evident where it means that no body can act where it has not the power of acting; and that if it be understood more largely, it is a mere assumption of the proposition on which their whole system rested. Sir Isaac Newton reformed Physics, not by simplifying that science, but by rendering it much more complicated. He introduced into it the force of attraction, of which he ascertained many laws, but which even he did not dare to represent as being as intelligible, and as conceivably ultimate as impulsion itself. It was necessary for Laplace to introduce intermediate laws, and to calculate disturbing forces, before the phenomena of the heavenly bodies could be reconciled even to Newton’s more complex theory. In the present state of physical and chemical knowledge, a man who should attempt to refer all the immense variety of facts to the simple impulse of the Cartesians, would have no chance of serious confutation. The number of laws augments with the progress of knowledge.

The speculations of the followers of Mr. Bentham are not unlike the unsuccessful attempt of the Cartesians. Mr. Mill, for example, derives the whole theory of Government from the single fact, that every man pursues his interest when he knows it; which he assumes to be a sort of self-evident practical principle,—if such a phrase be not contradictory. That a man’s pursuing the interest of another, or indeed any other object in nature, is just as conceivable as that he should pursue his own interest, is a proposition which seems never to have occurred to this acute and ingenious writer. Nothing, however, can be more certain than its truth, if the term “interest” be employed in its proper sense of general well-being, which is the only acceptation in which it can serve the purpose of his arguments. If, indeed, the term be employed to denote the gratification of a predominant desire, his proposition is self-evident, but wholly unserviceable in his argument; for it is clear that individuals and multitudes often desire what they know to be most inconsistent with their general welfare. A nation, as much as an individual, and sometimes more, may not only mistake its interest, but, perceiving it clearly, may prefer the gratification of a strong passion to it. The whole fabric of his political reasoning seems to be overthrown by this single observation; and instead of attempting to explain the immense variety of political facts by the simple principle of a contest of interests, we are reduced to the necessity of once more referring them to that variety of passions, habits, opinions, and prejudices, which we discover only by experience. Mr. Mill’s essay on Education affords another example of the inconvenience of leaping at once from the most general laws, to a multiplicity of minute appearances. Having assumed, or at least inferred from insufficient premises, that the intellectual and moral character is entirely formed by circumstances, he proceeds, in the latter part of the essay, as if it were a necessary consequence of that doctrine that we might easily acquire the power of combining and directing circumstances in such a manner as to produce the best possible character. Without disputing, for the present, the theoretical proposition, let us consider what would be the reasonableness of similar expectations in a more easily intelligible case. The general theory of the winds is pretty well understood; we know that they proceed from the rushing of air from those portions of the atmosphere which are more condensed, into those which are more rarefied: but how great a chasm is there between that simple law and the great variety of facts which experience exhibits! The constant winds between the tropics are large and regular enough to be in some measure capable of explanation: but who can tell why, in variable climates, the wind blows to-day from the east, to-morrow from the west? Who can foretell what its shifting and variations are to be? Who can account for a tempest on one day, and a calm on another? Even if we could foretell the irregular and infinite variations, how far might we not still be from the power of combining and guiding their causes? No man but the lunatic in the story of Rasselas ever dreamt that he could command the weather, The difficulty plainly consists in the multiplicity and minuteness of the circumstances which act on the atmosphere: are those which influence the formation of the human character likely to be less minute and multiplied?

The style of Mr. Bentham underwent a more remarkable revolution than perhaps befell that of any other writer. In his early works, it was clear, free, spirited, often and seasonably eloquent: many passages of his later writings retain the inimitable stamp of genius; but he seems to have been oppressed by the vastness of his projected works,—to have thought that he had no longer more than leisure to preserve the heads of them,—to have been impelled by a fruitful mind to new plans before he had completed the old. In this state of things, he gradually ceased to use words for conveying his thoughts to others, but merely employed them as a sort of short-hand to preserve his meaning for his own purpose. It was no wonder that his language should thus become obscure and repulsive. Though many of his technical terms are in themselves exact and pithy, yet the overflow of his vast nomenclature was enough to darken his whole diction.

It was at this critical period that the arrangement and translation of his manuscripts were undertaken by M. Dumont, a generous disciple, who devoted a genius formed for original and lasting works, to diffuse the principles, and promote the fame of his master. He whose pen Mirabeau did not disdain to borrow,—who, in the same school with Romilly, had studiously pursued the grace as well as the force of composition, was perfectly qualified to strip of its uncouthness a philosophy which he understood and admired. As he wrote in a general language, he propagated its doctrines throughout Europe, where they were beneficial to Jurisprudence, but perhaps injurious to the cause of reformation in Government. That they became more popular abroad than at home, is partly to be ascribed to the taste and skill of M. Dumont; partly to that tendency towards free speculation and bold reform which was more prevalent among nations newly freed, or impatiently aspiring to freedom, than in a people such as ours, long satisfied with their government, but not yet aware of the imperfections and abuses in their laws;—to the amendment of which last a cautious consideration of Mr. Bentham’s works will undoubtedly most materially contribute.