CHAPTER VI

NOTES:[291]Works, x. 403.[292]Ibid.x. 62.[293]Bentham had himself written some of his papers in French.[294]Works, x. 407, 410, 413, 419.[295]Ibid.x. 415.[296]Lord E. Fitzmaurice'sLife of Shelburne.[297]Works, x. 413.[298]This statement, I believe, refers to a complimentary reference to Bentham in the preface to the French Code.[299]Works, x. 458.[300]Bentham says that he reached these conclusions some time before 1809:Works, iii. 435. Cf.Ibid.v. 278.[301]Works, x. 425.[302]See description in Bain'sJames Mill, 129-36.[303]Works, x. 479, 573.[304]Works, x. 452-54.; Bain'sJames Mill, 104.[305]The case of the 'Kingv.Cobbett,' (1804), which led to the proceedings against Mr. Justice Johnson in 1805.—Cobbett'sState Trials, xxix.[306]Works, x. 448-49.[307]Ibid.x. 458.[308]Works, x. 471, 570.[309]Ibid.x. 471.[310]Ibid.x. 461.[311]Ibid.x. 471.[312]Ibid.x. 490.[313]Printed inWorks, x. 495-97.[314]Ibid.x. 570.[315]Ibid.x. 476.[316]Works, x. 485.[317]Bain'sJames Mill, 136.Church of EnglandismandNot Paul but Jesuswere also written at Ford Abbey.[318]Works, x. 433, 448.[319]Ibid.x. 457-58; Bain'sJames Mill, 79.[320]Works, 553-54, 565.[321]Ibid.xi. 53.[322]SeeMemoirs of J. Q. Adams(1874), iii. 511, 520, 532, 535-39, 540, 544, 560, 562-63. and Bentham's letter to Adams inWorks, x. 554.[323]Works, xi. 23.[324]Ibid.xi. 40.

[291]Works, x. 403.

[292]Ibid.x. 62.

[293]Bentham had himself written some of his papers in French.

[294]Works, x. 407, 410, 413, 419.

[295]Ibid.x. 415.

[296]Lord E. Fitzmaurice'sLife of Shelburne.

[297]Works, x. 413.

[298]This statement, I believe, refers to a complimentary reference to Bentham in the preface to the French Code.

[299]Works, x. 458.

[300]Bentham says that he reached these conclusions some time before 1809:Works, iii. 435. Cf.Ibid.v. 278.

[301]Works, x. 425.

[302]See description in Bain'sJames Mill, 129-36.

[303]Works, x. 479, 573.

[304]Works, x. 452-54.; Bain'sJames Mill, 104.

[305]The case of the 'Kingv.Cobbett,' (1804), which led to the proceedings against Mr. Justice Johnson in 1805.—Cobbett'sState Trials, xxix.

[306]Works, x. 448-49.

[307]Ibid.x. 458.

[308]Works, x. 471, 570.

[309]Ibid.x. 471.

[310]Ibid.x. 461.

[311]Ibid.x. 471.

[312]Ibid.x. 490.

[313]Printed inWorks, x. 495-97.

[314]Ibid.x. 570.

[315]Ibid.x. 476.

[316]Works, x. 485.

[317]Bain'sJames Mill, 136.Church of EnglandismandNot Paul but Jesuswere also written at Ford Abbey.

[318]Works, x. 433, 448.

[319]Ibid.x. 457-58; Bain'sJames Mill, 79.

[320]Works, 553-54, 565.

[321]Ibid.xi. 53.

[322]SeeMemoirs of J. Q. Adams(1874), iii. 511, 520, 532, 535-39, 540, 544, 560, 562-63. and Bentham's letter to Adams inWorks, x. 554.

[323]Works, xi. 23.

[324]Ibid.xi. 40.

V.CODIFICATION

The unsettled conditions which followed the peace in various European countries found Bentham other employment. In 1809 Dumont did some codifying for the Emperor of Russia, and in 1817 was engaged to do the same service for Geneva. He was employed for some years, and is said to have introduced a Benthamite Penal Code and Panopticon, and an application of the Tactics.[325]In 1820 and 1821 Bentham was consulted by the Constitutional party in Spain and Portugal, and wrote elaborate tracts for their enlightenment. He made an impression upon at least one Spaniard. Borrow, when travelling in Spain some ten years after Bentham's death, was welcomed by an Alcalde on Cape Finisterre, who had upon his shelves all the works of the 'grand Baintham,' and compared him to Solon, Plato, and even Lope de Vega.[326]The last comparison appeared to Borrow to be overstrained. Bentham even endeavoured in 1822-23 to administer some sound advice to the government of Tripoli, but his suggestions for 'remedies against misrule' seem never to have been communicated.[327]In 1823 and 1824 he was a member of the Greek Committee; he corresponded with Mavrocordato and other leaders; and he begged Parr to turn some of his admonitions into 'Parrian' Greek for the benefit of the moderns.[328]Blaquière and Stanhope, two ardent members of thecommittee, were disciples; and Stanhope carried with him to Greece Bentham'sTable of the Springs of Action, with which he tried to indoctrinate Byron. The poet, however, thought with some plausibility that he was a better judge of human passions than the philosopher. Parry, the engineer, who joined Byron at the same time, gives a queer account of the old philosopher trotting about London in the service of the Greeks.[329]The coarse and thoughtless might laugh, and perhaps some neither coarse nor thoughtless might smile. But Bowring tells us that these were days of boundless happiness for Bentham.[330]Tributes of admiration were pouring in from all sides, and the true Gospel was spreading across the Atlantic and along the shores of the Mediterranean.

At home the Utilitarian party was consolidating itself; and the struggle which resulted in the Reform Bill was slowly beginning. The veteran Cartwright, Bentham's senior by eight years, tried in 1821 to persuade him to come out as one of a committee of 'Guardians of Constitutional Reform,' elected at a public meeting.[331]Bentham wisely refused to be drawn from his privacy. He left it to his friends to agitate, while he returned to labour in his study. The demand for legislation which had sprung up in so many parts of the world encouraged Bentham to undertake the last of his great labours. The Portuguese Cortes voted in December 1821 that he should be invited to prepare an 'all-comprehensive code'; and in 1822 he put out a curious 'Codification proposal,' offering to do the work for any nation in need of a legislator, and appending testimonialsto his competence for the work. He set to work upon a 'Constitutional Code,' which occupied him at intervals during the remainder of his life, and embodied the final outcome of his speculations. He diverged from this main purpose to write various pamphlets upon topics of immediate interest; and was keenly interested in the various activities of his disciples. The Utilitarians now thought themselves entitled to enter the field of politics as a distinct body. An organ to defend their cause was desirable, and Bentham supplied the funds for theWestminster Review, of which the first number appeared in April 1824.

The editorship fell chiefly into the hands of Bowring (1792-1872). Bowring had travelled much upon the Continent for a commercial house, and his knowledge of Spanish politics had brought him into connection with Bentham, to whom Blaquière recommended him in 1820.[332]A strong attachment sprang up between the two. Bentham confided all his thoughts and feelings to the young man, and Bowring looked up to his teacher with affectionate reverence. In 1828 Bentham says that Bowring is 'the most intimate friend he has.'[333]Bowring complains of calumnies, by which he was assailed, though they failed to alienate Bentham. What they may have been matters little; but it is clear that a certain jealousy arose between this last disciple and his older rivals. James Mill's stern and rigid character had evidently produced some irritation at intervals; and to him it would naturally appear that Bowring was the object of a senile favouritism. In any case it is to be regretted that Bentham thus became partly alienated from his olderfriends[334]. Mill was too proud to complain; and never wavered in his allegiance to the master's principles. But one result, and to us the most important, was that the new attachment led to the composition of one of the worst biographies in the language, out of materials which might have served for a masterpiece. Bowring was a great linguist, and an energetic man of business. He wrote hymns, and one of them, 'In the cross of Christ I glory,' is said to have 'universal fame.' A Benthamite capable of so singular an eccentricity judiciously agreed to avoid discussions upon religious topics with his master. To Bowring we also owe theDeontology, which professes to represent Bentham's dictation. The Mills repudiated this version, certainly a very poor one, of their teacher's morality, and held that it represented less Bentham than such an impression of Bentham as could be stamped upon a muddle-headed disciple.[335]

The last years of his life brought Bentham into closer connection with more remarkable men. The Radicals had despised the Whigs as trimmers and half-hearted reformers, and James Mill expressed this feeling very frankly in the first numbers of theWestminster Review. Reform, however, was now becoming respectable, and the Whigs were gaining the courage to take it up seriously. Foremost among the Edinburgh Reviewers was the great Henry Brougham, whose fame was at this time almost as great as his ambition could desire, and who considered himself to be the natural leader of all reform. He had shown eagerness to distinguish himself in lines fullyapproved by Bentham. His admirers regarded him as a giant; and his opponents, if they saw in him a dash of the charlatan, could not deny his amazing energy and his capacity as an orator. The insatiable vanity which afterwards ruined his career already made it doubtful whether he fought for the cause or the glory. But he was at least an instrument worth having. He was a kind of half-disciple. If in 1809 he had checked Mill's praise of Bentham, he was soon afterwards in frequent communication with the master. In July 1812 Bentham announces that Brougham is at last to be admitted to a dinner, for which he had been 'intriguing any time this six months,' and expects that his proselyte will soon be the first man in the House of Commons, and eclipse even Romilly.[336]In later years they had frequent communications; and when in 1827 Brougham was known to be preparing an utterance upon law reform, Bentham's hopes rose high. He offered to his disciple 'some nice little sweet pap of my own making,' sound teaching that is, upon evidence, judicial establishments and codification. Brougham thanks his 'dear grandpapa,' and Bentham offers further supplies to his 'dear, sweet little poppet.'[337]But when the orator had spoken Bentham declares (9th February 1828) that the mountain has been delivered of a mouse. Brougham was 'not the man to set up' simple and rational principles. He was the sham adversary but the real accomplice of Peel, pulling up lies by the root to plant others equally noxious.[338]In 1830 Bentham had even to hold up 'Master Peel' as a 'model good boy' to the self-styled reformer. Brougham needs a dose of jalap instead of pap, for he cannot even spell the 'greatesthappiness principle' properly.[339]Bentham went so far as to write what he fondly took to be an epigram upon Brougham:

'So foolish and so wise, so great, so small,Everything now, to-morrow nought at all.'[340]

In September 1831 Brougham as Chancellor announced a scheme for certain changes in the constitution of the courts. The proposal called forth Bentham's last pamphlet,Lord Brougham displayed.[341]Bentham laments that his disciple has 'stretched out the right hand of fellowship to jobbers of all sorts.'[342]In vain had Brougham in his speech called Bentham 'one of the great sages of the law.' Bentham acknowledges his amiability and his genius; but laments over the untrustworthy character of a man who could only adopt principles so far as they were subservient to his own vanity.

Another light of theEdinburgh Review, who at this time took Brougham at his own valuation, did an incidental service to Bentham. Upon the publication of theBook of Fallaciesin 1825, Sydney Smith reviewed or rather condensed it in theEdinburgh Review, and gave the pith of the whole in his famousNoodle's Oration. The noodle utters all the commonplaces by which the stupid conservatives, with Eldon at their head, met the demands of reformers. Nothing could be wittier than Smith's brilliant summary. Whigs and Radicals for the time agreed in ridiculing blind prejudice. The day was to come when the Whigs at least would see that some principles might be worse than prejudice. All the fools, said Lord Melbourne, 'were against CatholicEmancipation, and the worst of it is, the fools were in the right.' Sydney Smith was glad to be Bentham's mouthpiece for the moment: though, when Benthamism was applied to church reform, Smith began to perceive that Noodle was not so silly as he seemed.

One other ally of Bentham deserves notice. O'Connell had in 1828, in speaking of legal abuses, called himself 'an humble disciple of the immortal Bentham.'[343]Bentham wrote to acknowledge the compliment. He invited O'Connell to become an inmate of his hermitage at Queen's Square Place, and O'Connell responded warmly to the letters of his 'revered master.' Bentham's aversion to Catholicism was as strong as his objection to Catholic disqualifications, and he took some trouble to smooth down the difficulties which threatened an alliance between ardent believers and thoroughgoing sceptics. O'Connell had attacked some who were politically upon his side. 'Dan, dear child,' says Bentham, 'whom in imagination I am at this moment pressing to my fond bosom, put off, if it be possible, your intolerance.'[344]Their friendship, however, did not suffer from this discord, and their correspondence is in the same tone till the end. In one of Bentham's letters he speaks of a contemporary correspondence with another great man, whom he does not appear to have met personally. He was writing long letters, entreating the duke of Wellington to eclipse Cromwell by successfully attacking the lawyers. The duke wrote 'immediate answers in his own hand,' and took good-humouredly a remonstrance from Bentham upon the duel with Lord Winchilsea in 1829.[345]Bentham was ready to the end toseek allies in any quarter. When Lord Sidmouth took office in 1812, Bentham had an interview with him, and had some hopes of being employed to prepare a penal code.[346]Although experience had convinced him of the futility of expectations from the Sidmouths and Eldons, he was always on the look out for sympathy; and the venerable old man was naturally treated with respect by people who had little enough of real interest in his doctrines.

During the last ten years of his life, Bentham was cheered by symptoms of the triumph of his creed. The approach of the millennium seemed to be indicated by the gathering of the various forces which carried Roman Catholic Emancipation and the Reform Bill. Bentham still received testimonies of his fame abroad. In 1825 he visited Paris to consult some physicians. He was received with the respect which the French can always pay to intellectual eminence.[347]All the lawyers in a court of justice rose to receive him, and he was placed at the president's right hand. On the revolution of 1830, he addressed some good advice to the country of which he had been made a citizen nearly forty years before. In 1832, Talleyrand, to whom he had talked about the Panopticon in 1792, dined with him alone in his hermitage.[348]When Bowring observed to the prince that Bentham's works had been plundered, the polite diplomatist replied,et pillé de tout le monde, il est toujours riche. Bentham was by this time failing. At eighty-two he was still, as he put it, 'codifying like any dragon.'[349]On 18th May 1832 he did his last bit of his lifelong labour, upon the 'Constitutional Code.' The greatreform agitation was reaching the land of promise, but Bentham was to die in the wilderness. He sank without a struggle on 6th June 1832, his head resting on Bowring's bosom. He left the characteristic direction that his body should be dissected for the benefit of science. An incision was formally made; and the old gentleman, in his clothes as he lived, his face covered by a wax mask, is still to be seen at University College in Gower Street.

Bentham, as we are told, had a strong personal resemblance to Benjamin Franklin. Sagacity, benevolence, and playfulness were expressed in both physiognomies. Bentham, however, differed from the man whose intellect presents many points of likeness, in that he was not a man of the market-place or the office. Bentham was in many respects a child through life:[350]a child in simplicity, good humour, and vivacity; his health was unbroken; he knew no great sorrow; and after emerging from the discouragement of his youth, he was placidly contemplating a continuous growth of fame and influence. He is said to have expressed the wish that he could awake once in a century to contemplate the prospect of a world gradually adopting his principles and so making steady progress in happiness and wisdom.

No man could lead a simpler life. His chief luxuries at table were fruit, bread, and tea. He had a 'sacred teapot' called Dick, with associations of its own, and carefully regulated its functions. He refrained from wine during the greatest part of his life, and was never guilty of a single act of intemperance. In later life he took a daily half-glass of Madeira. He was scrupulouslyneat in person, and wore a Quaker-like brown coat, brown cassimere breeches, white worsted stockings and a straw hat. He walked or 'rather trotted' with his stick Dapple, and took his 'ante-prandial' and other 'circumgyrations' with absolute punctuality. He loved pets; he had a series of attached cats; and cherished the memory of a 'beautiful pig' at Hendon, and of a donkey at Ford Abbey. He encouraged mice to play in his study—a taste which involved some trouble with his cats, and suggests problems as to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Kindness to animals was an essential point of his moral creed. 'I love everything,' he said, 'that has four legs.' He had a passion for flowers, and tried to introduce useful plants. He loved music—especially Handel—and had an organ in his house. He cared nothing for poetry: 'Prose,' he said,[351]'is when all the lines except the last go on to the margin. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it.' He was courteous and attentive to his guests, though occasionally irritable when his favourite crotchets were transgressed, or especially if his fixed hours of work were deranged.

His regularity in literary work was absolute. He lived by a time-table, working in the morning and turning out from ten to fifteen folio pages daily. He read the newspapers regularly, but few books, and cared nothing for criticisms on his own writings. His only substantial meal was a dinner at six or half-past, to which he occasionally admitted a few friends as a high privilege. He liked to discuss the topics of which his mind was full, and made notes beforehand of particular points tobe introduced in conversation. He was invariably inaccessible to visitors, even famous ones, likely to distract his thoughts. 'Tell Mr. Bentham that Mr. Richard Lovell Edgeworth desires to see him.' 'Tell Mr. Richard Lovell Edgeworth that Mr. Bentham does not desire to see him' was the reply. When Mme. de Staël came to England, she said to Dumont: 'Tell Bentham I shall see nobody till I have seen him.' 'I am sorry for it,' said Bentham, 'for then she will never see anybody.' And he summed up his opinion of the famous author ofCorinneby calling her 'a trumpery magpie.'[352]There is a simplicity and vivacity about some of the sayings reported by Bowring, which prove that Bentham could talk well, and increase our regret for the absence of a more efficient Boswell. At ten Bentham had his tea, at eleven his nightcap, and by twelve all his guests were ignominiously expelled. He was left to sleep on a hard bed. His sleep was light, and much disturbed by dreams.

Bentham was certainly amiable. The 'surest way to gain men,' he said, 'is to appear to love them, and the surest way to appear to love them is to love them in reality.' The least pleasing part of his character, however, is the apparent levity of his attachments. He was, as we have seen, partly alienated from Dumont, though some friendly communications are recorded in later years, and Dumont spoke warmly of Bentham only a few days before his death in 1829.[353]He not only cooled towards James Mill, but, if Bowring is to be trusted, spoke of him with great harshness.[354]Bowring was not a judicious reporter, indeed, and capable of taking hasty phrases too seriously. What Bentham's remarks upon these andother friends suggest is not malice or resentment, but the flippant utterance of a man whose feelings are wanting in depth rather than kindliness. It is noticeable that, after his early visit at Bowood, no woman seems to have counted for anything in Bentham's life. He was not only never in love, but it looks as if he never even talked to any woman except his cook or housemaid.

The one conclusion that I need draw concerns a question not, I think, hard to be solved. It would be easy to make a paradox by calling Bentham at once the most practical and most unpractical of men. This is to point out the one-sided nature of Bentham's development. Bentham's habits remind us in some ways of Kant; and the thought may be suggested that he would have been more in his element as a German professor of philosophies. In such a position he might have devoted himself to the delight of classifying and co-ordinating theories, and have found sufficient enjoyment in purely intellectual activity. After a fashion that was the actual result. How far, indeed, Bentham could have achieved much in the sphere of pure philosophy, and what kind of philosophy he would have turned out, must be left to conjecture. The circumstances of his time and country, and possibly his own temperament generally, turned his thoughts to problems of legislation and politics, that is to say, of direct practical interest. He was therefore always dealing with concrete facts, and a great part of his writings may be considered as raw material for acts of parliament. Bentham remained, however, unpractical, in the sense that he had not that knowledge which we ascribe either to the poet or to the man of the world. He had neither the passion nor the sympathetic imagination. The springsof active conduct which Byron knew from experience were to Bentham nothing more than names in a careful classification. Any shrewd attorney or Bow Street runner would have been a better judge of the management of convicts; and here were dozens of party politicians, such as Rigby and Barré, who could have explained to him beforehand those mysteries in the working of the political machinery, which it took him half a lifetime to discover. In this sense Bentham was unpractical in the highest degree, for at eighty he had not found out of what men are really made. And yet by his extraordinary intellectual activity and the concentration of all his faculties upon certain problems, he succeeded in preserving an example, and though not a unique yet an almost unsurpassable example, of the power which belongs to the man of one idea.

NOTES:[325]See correspondence upon his codification plans in Russia, America, and Geneva inWorks, iv. 451-594.[326]Borrow'sBible in Spain, ch. xxx.[327]Works, viii. 555-600.[328]Ibid.x. 534. See Blaquière's enthusiastic letter to Bentham.—Works, x. 475.[329]See, however, Bentham's reference to this story.—Works, xi. 66.[330]Works, x. 539.[331]Ibid.x. 522.[332]Works, x. 516.[333]Ibid.x. 591.[334]A letter from Mill in the University CollegeMSS.describes a misunderstanding about borrowed books, a fertile, but hardly adequate, cause of quarrel.[335]Bowring's religious principles prevented him from admitting some of Bentham's works to the collective edition.[336]Works, x. 471-72.[337]Ibid.x. 576.[338]Ibid.x. 588.[339]Works, xi. 37. Papers preserved at University College show that during Peel's law reforms at this time Bentham frequently communicated with him.[340]Ibid.xi. 50.[341]Ibid.v. 549.[342]Ibid.v. 609.[343]Works, x. 594.[344]Ibid.xi. 26.[345]Ibid.xi. 13, 28.[346]Works, x. 468.[347]Ibid.x. 551.[348]Ibid.xi. 75.[349]Ibid.xi. 33.[350]Mill'sDissertations, i. 354 and 392n.[351]Works, x. 442.[352]Works, x. 467; xi. 79.[353]Ibid.xi. 23-24.[354]Ibid.x. 450.

[325]See correspondence upon his codification plans in Russia, America, and Geneva inWorks, iv. 451-594.

[326]Borrow'sBible in Spain, ch. xxx.

[327]Works, viii. 555-600.

[328]Ibid.x. 534. See Blaquière's enthusiastic letter to Bentham.—Works, x. 475.

[329]See, however, Bentham's reference to this story.—Works, xi. 66.

[330]Works, x. 539.

[331]Ibid.x. 522.

[332]Works, x. 516.

[333]Ibid.x. 591.

[334]A letter from Mill in the University CollegeMSS.describes a misunderstanding about borrowed books, a fertile, but hardly adequate, cause of quarrel.

[335]Bowring's religious principles prevented him from admitting some of Bentham's works to the collective edition.

[336]Works, x. 471-72.

[337]Ibid.x. 576.

[338]Ibid.x. 588.

[339]Works, xi. 37. Papers preserved at University College show that during Peel's law reforms at this time Bentham frequently communicated with him.

[340]Ibid.xi. 50.

[341]Ibid.v. 549.

[342]Ibid.v. 609.

[343]Works, x. 594.

[344]Ibid.xi. 26.

[345]Ibid.xi. 13, 28.

[346]Works, x. 468.

[347]Ibid.x. 551.

[348]Ibid.xi. 75.

[349]Ibid.xi. 33.

[350]Mill'sDissertations, i. 354 and 392n.

[351]Works, x. 442.

[352]Works, x. 467; xi. 79.

[353]Ibid.xi. 23-24.

[354]Ibid.x. 450.

I.FIRST PRINCIPLES

Bentham's position is in one respect unique. There have been many greater thinkers; but there has been hardly any one whose abstract theory has become in the same degree the platform of an active political party. To accept the philosophy was to be also pledged to practical applications of Utilitarianism. What, then, was the revelation made to the Benthamites, and to what did it owe its influence? The central doctrine is expressed in Bentham's famous formula: the test of right and wrong is the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number.' There was nothing new in this assertion. It only expresses the fact that Bentham accepted one of the two alternatives which have commended themselves to conflicting schools ever since ethical speculation was erected into a separate department of thought. Moreover, the side which Bentham took was, we may say, the winning side. The ordinary morality of the time was Utilitarian in substance. Hutcheson had invented the sacred phrase: and Hume had based his moral system upon 'utility.'[355]Benthamhad learned much from Helvétius the French freethinker, and had been anticipated by Paley the English divine. The writings in which Bentham deals explicitly with the general principles of Ethics would hardly entitle him to a higher position than that of a disciple of Hume without Hume's subtlety; or of Paley without Paley's singular gift of exposition. Why, then, did Bentham's message come upon his disciples with the force and freshness of a new revelation? Our answer must be in general terms that Bentham founded not a doctrine but a method: and that the doctrine which came to him simply as a general principle was in his hands a potent instrument applied with most fruitful results to questions of immediate practical interest.

Beyond the general principle of utility, therefore, we have to consider the 'organon' constructed by him to give effect to a general principle too vague to be applied in detail. The fullest account of this is contained in theIntroduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. This work unfortunately is a fragment, but it gives his doctrine vigorously and decisively, without losing itself in the minute details which become wearisome in his later writings. Bentham intended it as an introduction to a penal code; and his investigation sent him back to more general problems. He found it necessary to settle the relations of the penal code to the whole body of law; and to settle these he had to consider the principles which underlie legislation in general. He had thus, he says, to 'create a new science,' and then to elaborate one department of the science. The 'introduction' would contain prolegomena not only for the penal code but for the other departments of inquirywhich he intended to exhaust.[356]He had to lay down primary truths which should be to this science what the axioms are to mathematical sciences.[357]These truths therefore belong to the sphere of conduct in general, and include his ethical theory.

'Nature has placed mankind' (that is his opening phrase) 'under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.' There is the unassailable basis. It had been laid down as unequivocally by Locke,[358]and had been embodied in the brilliant couplets of Pope'sEssay on Man.[359]At the head of the curious table of universal knowledge, given in theChrestomathia, we have Eudæmonics as an all-comprehensive name of which every art is a branch.[360]Eudæmonics, as an art, corresponds to the science 'ontology.' It covers the whole sphere of human thought. It means knowledge in general as related to conduct. Its first principle, again, requires no more proof than the primary axioms of arithmetic or geometry. Once understood, it is by the same act of the mind seen to be true. Some people, indeed, do not see it. Bentham rather ignores than answers some of their arguments. But his mode of treating opponents indicates his own position. 'Happiness,' it is often said, is too vague a word to be the keystone of an ethical system; it variesfrom man to man: or it is 'subjective,' and therefore gives no absolute or independent ground for morality. A morality of 'eudæmonism' must be an 'empirical' morality, and we can never extort from it that 'categorical imperative,' without which we have instead of a true morality a simple system of 'expediency.' From Bentham's point of view the criticism must be retorted. He regards 'happiness' as precisely the least equivocal of words; and 'happiness' itself as therefore affording the one safe clue to all the intricate problems of human conduct. The authors of theFederalist, for example, had said that justice was the 'end of government.' 'Why not happiness?' asks Bentham. 'What happiness is every man knows, because what pleasure is, every man knows, and what pain is, every man knows. But what justice is—this is what on every occasion is the subject-matter of dispute.'[361]That phrase gives his view in a nutshell. Justice is the means, not the end. That is just which produces a maximum of happiness. Omit all reference to Happiness, and Justice becomes a meaningless word prescribing equality, but not telling us equality of what. Happiness, on the other hand, has a substantial and independent meaning from which the meaning of justice can be deduced. It has therefore a logical priority: and to attempt to ignore this is the way to all the labyrinths of hopeless confusion by which legislation has been made a chaos. Bentham's position is indicated by his early conflict with Blackstone, not a very powerful representative of the opposite principle. Blackstone, in fact, had tried to base his defence of that eminently empirical product, the British Constitution,upon some show of a philosophical groundwork. He had used the vague conception of a 'social contract,' frequently invoked for the same purpose at the revolution of 1688, and to eke out his arguments applied the ancient commonplaces about monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. He thus tried to invest the constitution with the sanctity derived from this mysterious 'contract,' while appealing also to tradition or the incarnate 'wisdom of our ancestors,' as shown by their judicious mixture of the three forms. Bentham had an easy task, though he performed it with remarkable vigour, in exposing the weakness of this heterogeneous aggregate. Look closely, and this fictitious contract can impose no new obligation: for the obligation itself rests upon Utility. Why not appeal to Utility at once? I am bound to obey, not because my great-grandfather may be regarded as having made a bargain, which he did not really make, with the great-grandfather of GeorgeIII.; but simply because rebellion does more harm than good. The forms of government are abstractions, not names of realities, and their 'mixture' is a pure figment. King, Lords, and Commons are not really incarnations of power, wisdom, and goodness. Their combination forms a system the merits of which must in the last resort be judged by its working. 'It is the principle of utility, accurately apprehended and steadily applied, that affords the only clew to guide a man through these streights.'[362]So much in fact Bentham might learn from Hume; and to defend upon any other ground the congeries of traditional arrangements which passed for the British Constitution was obviously absurd. It was in this warfare against theshifting and ambiguous doctrines of Blackstone that Bentham first showed the superiority of his own method: for, as between the two, Bentham's position is at least the most coherent and intelligible.

Blackstone, however, represents little more than a bit of rhetoric embodying fragments of inconsistent theories. TheMorals and Legislationopens by briefly and contemptuously setting aside more philosophical opponents of Utilitarianism. The 'ascetic' principle, for example, is the formal contradiction of the principle of Utility, for it professedly declares pleasure to be evil. Could it be consistently carried out it would turn earth into hell. But in fact it is at bottom an illegitimate corollary from the very principle which it ostensibly denies. It professes to condemn pleasure in general; it really means that certain pleasures can only be bought at an excessive cost of pain. Other theories are contrivances for avoiding the appeal 'to any external standard'; and in substance, therefore, they make the opinion of the individual theorist an ultimate and sufficient reason. Adam Smith by his doctrine of 'sympathy' makes the sentiment of approval itself the ultimate standard. My feeling echoes yours, and reciprocally; each cannot derive authority from the other. Another man (Hutcheson) invents a thing made on purpose to tell him what is right and what is wrong and calls it a 'moral sense.' Beattie substitutes 'common' for 'moral' sense, and his doctrine is attractive because every man supposes himself to possess common sense. Others, like Price, appeal to the Understanding, or, like Clarke, to the 'Fitness of Things,' or they invent such phrases as 'Law of Nature,' or 'Right Reason' or 'Natural Justice,' or what youplease. Each really means that whatever he says is infallibly true and self-evident. Wollaston discovers that the only wrong thing is telling a lie; or that when you kill your father, it is a way of saying that he is not your father, and the same method is applicable to any conduct which he happens to dislike. The 'fairest and openest of them all' is the man who says, 'I am of the number of the Elect'; God tells the Elect what is right: therefore if you want to know what is right, you have only to come to me.[363]Bentham is writing here in his pithiest style. His criticism is of course of the rough and ready order; but I think that in a fashion he manages to hit the nail pretty well on the head.

His main point, at any rate, is clear. He argues briefly that the alternative systems are illusory because they refer to no 'external standard.' His opponents, not he, really make morality arbitrary. This, whatever the ultimate truth, is in fact the essential core of all the Utilitarian doctrine descended from or related to Benthamism. Benthamism aims at converting morality into a science. Science, according to him, must rest upon facts. It must apply to real things, and to things which have definite relations and a common measure. Now, if anything be real, pains and pleasures are real. The expectation of pain or pleasure determines conduct; and, if so, it must be the sole determinant of conduct. The attempt to conceal or evade this truth is the fatal source of all equivocation and confusion. Try theexperiment. Introduce a 'moral sense.' What is its relation to the desire for happiness? If the dictates of the moral sense be treated as ultimate, an absolutely arbitrary element is introduced; and we have one of the 'innate ideas' exploded by Locke, a belief summarily intruded into the system without definite relations to any other beliefs: a dogmatic assertion which refuses to be tested or to be correlated with other dogmas; a reduction therefore of the whole system to chaos. It is at best an instinctive belief which requires to be justified and corrected by reference to some other criterion. Or resolve morality into 'reason,' that is, into some purely logical truth, and it then remains in the air—a mere nonentity until experience has supplied some material upon which it can work. Deny the principle of utility, in short, as he says in a vigorous passage,[364]and you are involved in a hopeless circle. Sooner or later you appeal to an arbitrary and despotic principle and find that you have substituted words for thoughts.

The only escape from this circle is the frank admission that happiness is, in fact, the sole aim of man. There are, of course, different kinds of happiness as there are different kinds of physical forces. But the motives to action are, like the physical forces, commensurable. Two courses of conduct can always be compared in respect of the happiness produced, as two motions of a body can be compared in respect of the energy expended. If, then, we take the moral judgment to be simply a judgment of amounts of happiness, the whole theory can be systematised, and its various theorems ranged under a single axiom or consistent set of axioms. Pain andpleasure give the real value of actions; they are the currency with a definite standard into which every general rule may be translated. There is always a common measure applicable in every formula for the estimation of conduct. If you admit your Moral Sense, you profess to settle values by some standard which has no definite relation to the standard which in fact governs the normal transactions. But any such double standard, in which the two measures are absolutely incommensurable, leads straight to chaos. Or, if again you appeal to reason in the abstract, you are attempting to settle an account by pure arithmetic without reference to the units upon which your operation is performed. Two pounds and two pounds will make four pounds whatever a pound may be; but till I know what it is, the result is nugatory. Somewhere I must come upon a basis of fact, if my whole construction is to stand.

This is the fundamental position implied in Bentham's doctrine. The moral judgment is simply one case of the judgment of happiness. Bentham is so much convinced of this that to him there appeared to be in reality no other theory. What passed for theories were mere combinations of words. Having said this, we know where to lay the foundations of the new science. It deals with a vast complicity of facts: it requires 'investigations as severe as mathematical ones, but beyond all comparison more intricate and extensive.'[365]Still it deals with facts, and with facts which have a common measure, and can, therefore, be presented as a coherent system. To present this system, or so much of it as is required for purposes of legislation, is thereforehis next task. The partial execution is the chief substance of theIntroduction. Right and wrong conduct, we may now take for granted, mean simply those classes of conduct which are conducive to or opposed to happiness; or, in the sacred formula, to act rightly means to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The legislator, like every one else, acts rightly in so far as he is guided by the principle (to use one of the phrases coined by Bentham) of 'maximising' happiness. He seeks to affect conduct; and conduct can be affected only by annexing pains or pleasures to given classes of actions. Hence we have a vitally important part of his doctrine—the theory of 'sanctions.' Pains and pleasures as annexed to action are called 'sanctions.' There are 'physical or natural,' 'political, 'moral or popular,' and 'religious' sanctions. The 'physical' sanctions are such pleasures and pains as follow a given course of conduct independently of the interference of any other human or supernatural being; the 'political' those which are annexed by the action of the legislator; the 'moral or popular' those which are annexed by other individuals not acting in a corporate capacity; and the 'religious' those which are annexed by a 'superior invisible being,' or, as he says elsewhere,[366]'such as are capable of being expected at the hands of an invisible Ruler of the Universe.' The three last sanctions, he remarks, 'operate through the first.' The 'magistrate' or 'men at large' can only operate, and God is supposed only to operate, 'through the powers of nature,' that is, by applying some of the pains and pleasures which may also be natural sanctions. A man is burnt: if by his own imprudence, that is a'physical' sanction; if by the magistrate, it is a 'political' sanction; if by some neglect of his neighbours, due to their dislike of his 'moral character,' a 'moral' sanction; if by the immediate act of God or by distraction caused by dread of God's displeasure, it is a 'religious' sanction. Of these, as Bentham characteristically observes[367]in a later writing the political is much stronger than the 'moral' or 'religious.' Many men fear the loss of character or the 'wrath of Heaven,' but all men fear the scourge and the gallows.[368]He admits, however, that the religious sanction and the additional sanction of 'benevolence' have the advantage of not requiring that the offender should be found out.[369]But in any case, the 'natural' and religious sanctions are beyond the legislator's power. His problem, therefore, is simply this: what sanctions ought he to annex to conduct, or remembering that 'ought' means simply 'conducive to happiness,' what political sanctions will increase happiness?

To answer this fully will be to give a complete system of legislation; but in order to answer it we require a whole logical and psychological apparatus. Bentham shows this apparatus at work, but does not expound its origin in any separate treatise. Enough information, however, is given as to his method in the curious collection of the fragments connected with theChrestomathia. A logical method upon which he constantlyinsisted is that of 'bipartition,'[370]called also the 'dichotomous' or 'bifurcate' method, and exemplified by the so-called 'Porphyrian Tree.' The principle is, of course, simple. Take any genus: divide it into two classes, one of which has and the other has not a certain mark. The two classes must be mutually exclusive and together exhaustive. Repeat the operation upon each of the classes and continue the process as long as desired.[371]At every step you thus have a complete enumeration of all the species, varieties, and so on, each of which excludes all the others. No mere logic, indeed, can secure the accuracy and still less the utility of the procedure. The differences may be in themselves ambiguous or irrelevant. If I classify plants as 'trees' and 'not trees,' the logical form is satisfied: but I have still to ask whether 'tree' conveys a determinate meaning, and whether the distinction corresponds to a difference of any importance. A perfect classification, however, could always be stated in this form. Each species, that is, can be marked by the presence or absence of a given difference, whether we are dealing with classes of plants or actions: and Bentham aims at that consummation though he admits that centuries may be required for the construction of an accurate classification in ethical speculations.[372]He exaggerates the efficiency of his method, and overlooks the tendency of tacit assumptions to smuggle themselves into what affects to be a mere enumeration of classes. But in any case, no one could labour more industriously to get every object of histhought arranged and labelled and put into the right pigeon-hole of his mental museum. To codify[373]is to classify, and Bentham might be defined as a codifying animal.

Things thus present themselves to Bentham's mind as already prepared to fit into pigeon-holes. This is a characteristic point, and it appears in what we must call his metaphysical system. 'Metaphysics,' indeed, according to him, is simply 'a sprig,' and that a small one, of the 'branch termed Logic.'[374]It is merely the explanation of certain general terms such as 'existence,' 'necessity,' and so forth.[375]Under this would apparently fall the explanation of 'reality' which leads to a doctrine upon which he often insists, and which is most implicitly given in the fragment calledOntology. He there distinguishes 'real' from 'fictitious entities,' a distinction which, as he tells us,[376]he first learned from d'Alembert's phraseÊtres fictifsand which he applies in hisMorals and Legislation. 'Real entities,' according to him,[377]are 'individual perceptions,' 'impressions,' and 'ideas.' In this, of course, he is following Hume, though he applies the Johnsonian argument to Berkeley's immaterialism.[378]A 'fictitious entity' is a name which does note 'raise up in the mind any correspondent images.'[379]Such names owe their existence to the necessities of language. Without employing such fictions, however, 'the language of man could not have risen above the language ofbrutes';[380]and he emphatically distinguishes them from 'unreal' or 'fabulous entities.' A 'fictitious entity' is not a 'nonentity.'[381]He includes among such entities all Aristotle's 'predicaments' except the first: 'substance.'[382]Quantity, quality, relation, time, place are all 'physical fictitious entities.' This is apparently equivalent to saying that the only 'physical entities' are concrete things—sticks, stones, bodies, and so forth—the 'reality' of which he takes for granted in the ordinary common sense meaning. It is also perfectly true that things are really related, have quantity and quality, and are in time and space. But we cannot really conceive the quality or relation apart from the concrete things so qualified and related. We are forced by language to use substantives which in their nature have only the sense of adjectives. He does not suppose that a body is not really square or round; but he thinks it a fiction to speak of squareness or roundness or space in general as something existing apart from matter and, in some sense, alongside of matter.

This doctrine, which brings us within sight of metaphysical problems beyond our immediate purpose, becomes important to his moral speculation. His special example of a 'fictitious entity' in politics is 'obligation.'[383]Obligations, rights, and similar words are 'fictitious entities.' Obligation in particular implies a metaphor. The statement that a man is 'obliged' to perform an act means simply that he will suffer pain if he does not perform it. The use of the word obligation, as a noun substantive, introduces the 'fictitious entity' which represents nothingreally separable from the pain or pleasure. Here, therefore, we have the ground of the doctrine already noticed. 'Pains and pleasures' are real.[384]'Their existence,' he says,[385]'is matter of universal and constant experience.' But other various names referring to these: emotion, inclination, vice, virtue, etc., are only 'psychological entities.' 'Take away pleasures and pains, not only happiness but justice and duty and obligation and virtue—all of which have been so elaborately held up to view as independent of them—are so many empty sounds.'[386]The ultimate facts, then, are pains and pleasures. They are the substantives of which these other words are properly the adjectives. A pain or a pleasure may exist by itself, that is without being virtuous or vicious: but virtue and vice can only exist in so far as pain and pleasure exists.

This analysis of 'obligation' is a characteristic doctrine of the Utilitarian school. We are under an 'obligation' so far as we are affected by a 'sanction.' It appeared to Bentham so obvious as to need no demonstration, only an exposition of the emptiness of any verbal contradiction. Such metaphysical basis as he needed is simply the attempt to express the corresponding conception of reality which, in his opinion, only requires to be expressed to carry conviction.

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