The English Utilitarians Volume I Part 17

[426] _Works_, vii. 204, 331; ix. 143.

[427] _Ibid._ vii. 214.

[428] _Ibid._ v. 349.

[429] _Ibid._ v. 364.

[430] _Works_, v. 371.

[431] _Ibid._ v. 375.

[432] _Ibid._ vii. 188.

[433] _Ibid._ v. 370.

VI. RADICALISM

Thus Bentham, as his eyes were opened, became a Radical. The political purpose became dominant, although we always see that the legal abuses are uppermost in his mind; and that what he really seeks is a fulcrum for the machinery which is to overthrow Lord Eldon. Some of the pamphlets deal directly with the special instruments of corruption. The _Elements of the Art of Packing_ shows how the crown managed to have a permanent body of special 'jurors' at its disposal. The 'grand and paramount use'[434] of this system was to crush the liberty of the press. The obscure law of libel, worked by judges in the interest of the government, enabled them to punish any rash Radical for 'hurting the feelings' of the ruling cla.s.ses, and to evade responsibility by help of a 'covertly pensioned' and servile jury. The pamphlet, though tiresomely minute and long-winded, contained too much pointed truth to be published at the time. The _Official Apt.i.tude minimised_ contains a series of attacks upon the system of patronage and pensions by which the machinery of government was practically worked. In the _Catechism_ of reformers, written in 1809, Bentham began the direct application of his theories to the const.i.tution; and the final and most elaborate exposition of these forms the _Const.i.tutional Code_, which was the main work of his later years. This book excited the warmest admiration of Bentham's disciples.[435] J. S. Mill speaks of its 'extraordinary power ... of at once seizing comprehensive principles and scheming out minute details,'

and of its 'surpa.s.sing intellectual vigour.' Nor, indeed, will any one be disposed to deny that it is a singular proof of intellectual activity, when we remember that it was begun when the author was over seventy, and that he was still working at eighty-four.[436] In this book Bentham's peculiarities of style reach their highest development, and it cannot be recommended as light reading. Had Bentham been a mystical philosopher, he would, we may conjecture, have achieved a masterpiece of unintelligibility which all his followers would have extolled as containing the very essence of his teaching. His method condemned him to be always intelligible, however crabbed and elaborate. Perhaps, however, the point which strikes one most is the amazing simple-mindedness of the whole proceeding. Bentham's light-hearted indifference to the distinction between paper const.i.tutions and operative rules of conduct becomes almost pathetic.

Bentham was clearly the victim of a common delusion. If a system will work, the minutest details can be exhibited. Therefore, it is inferred, an exhibition of minute detail proves that it will work. Unfortunately, the philosophers of Laputa would have had no more difficulty in filling up details than the legislators of England or the United States. When Bentham had settled in his 'Radical Reform Bill'[437] that the 'voting-box' was to be a double cube of cast-iron, with a slit in the lid, into which cards two inches by one, white on one side and black on the other, could be inserted, he must have felt that he had got very near to actual application: he can picture the whole operation and n.o.body can say that the scheme is impracticable for want of working plans of the machinery. There will, doubtless, be no difficulty in settling the shape of the boxes, when we have once agreed to have the ballot. But a discussion of such remote details of Utopia is of incomparably less real interest than the discussion in the _Rationale of Evidence_ of points, which, however minute, were occurring every day, and which were really in urgent need of the light of common sense.

Bentham's general principles may be very simply stated. They are, in fact, such as were suggested by his view of legal grievances. Why, when he had demonstrated that certain measures would contribute to the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number,' were they not at once adopted? Because the rulers did not desire the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This, in Bentham's language, is to say that they were governed by a 'sinister interest.' Their interest was that of their cla.s.s, not that of the nation; they aimed at the greatest happiness of some, not at the greatest happiness of all. A generalisation of this remark gives us the first axioms of all government. There are two primary principles: the 'self-preference' principle, in virtue of which every man always desires his own greatest happiness'; and the 'greatest happiness' principle, in virtue of which 'the right and proper end' of government is the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number.'[438] The 'actual end' of every government, again, is the greatest happiness of the governors. Hence the whole problem is to produce a coincidence of the two ends, by securing an ident.i.ty of interest between governors and governed. To secure that we have only to identify the two cla.s.ses or to put the government in the hands of all.[439] In a monarchy, the ruler aims at the interest of one--himself; in a 'limited monarchy' the aim is at the happiness of the king and the small privileged cla.s.s; in a democracy, the end is the right one--the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This is a short cut to all const.i.tutional questions.

Probably it has occurred in substance to most youthful members of debating societies. Bentham's confidence in his logic lifts him above any appeal to experience; and he occasionally reminds us of the proof given in _Martin Chuzzlewit_ that the queen must live in the Tower of London. The 'monarch,' as he observes,[440] 'is naturally the very worst--the most maleficent member of the whole community.' Wherever an aristocracy differs from the democracy, their judgment will be erroneous.[441] The people will naturally choose 'morally apt agents,'

and men who wish to be chosen will desire truly to become 'morally apt,'

for they can only recommend themselves by showing their desire to serve the general interest.[442] 'All experience testifies to this theory,'

though the evidence is 'too bulky' to be given. Other proofs, however, may at once be rendered superfluous by appealing to 'the uninterrupted and most notorious experience of the United States.'[443] To that happy country he often appeals indeed[444] as a model government. In it, there is no corruption, no useless expenditure, none of the evils ill.u.s.trated by our 'matchless const.i.tution.'

The const.i.tution deduced from these principles has at least the merit of simplicity. We are to have universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and vote by ballot. He inclines to give a vote to women.[445] There is to be no king, no house of peers, no established church. Members of parliament are not to be re-eligible, till after an interval. Elaborate rules provide for their regular attendance and exclusive devotion to their masters' business. They are to be simply 'deputies,' not 'representatives.' They elect a prime minister who holds office for four years. Officials are to be appointed by a complex plan of compet.i.tive examination; and they are to be invited to send in tenders for doing the work at diminished salary. When once in office, every care is taken for their continual inspection by the public and the verification of their accounts. They are never for an instant to forget that they are servants, not the masters, of the public.

Bentham, of course, is especially minute and careful in regard to the judicial organisation--a subject upon which he wrote much, and much to the purpose. The functions and fees of advocates are to be narrowly restricted, and advocates to be provided gratuitously for the poor. They are not to become judges: to make a barrister a judge is as sensible as it would be to select a procuress for mistress of a girls' school.[446]

Judges should be everywhere accessible: always on duty, too busy to have time for corruption, and always under public supervision. One characteristic device is his quasi-jury. The English system of requiring unanimity was equivalent to enforcing perjury by torture. Its utility as a means of resisting tyranny would disappear when tyranny had become impossible. But public opinion might be usefully represented by a 'quasi-jury' of three or five, who should not p.r.o.nounce a verdict, but watch the judge, interrogate, if necessary, and in case of need demand a rehearing. Judges, of course, were no longer to make law, but to propose amendments in the 'Pannomion' or universal code, when new cases arose.

His leading principle may be described in one word as 'responsibility,'

or expressed in his leading rule, 'Minimise Confidence.'[447] 'All government is in itself one vast evil.'[448] It consists in applying evil to exclude worse evil. Even 'to reward is to punish,'[449] when reward is given by government. The less government, then, the better; but as governors are a necessary evil, they must be limited by every possible device to the sole legitimate aim, and watched at every turn by the all-seeing eye of public opinion. Every one must admit that this is an application of a sound principle, and that one condition of good government is the diffusion of universal responsibility. It must be admitted, too, that Bentham's theory represents a vigorous embodiment and unflinching application of doctrines which since his time have spread and gained more general authority. Mill says that granting one a.s.sumption, the Const.i.tutional Code is 'admirable.'[450] That a.s.sumption is that it is for the good of mankind to be under the absolute authority of a majority. In other words, it would justify what Mill calls the 'despotism of public opinion.' To protest against that despotism was one of the main purposes of Mill's political writings. How was it that the disciple came to be in such direct opposition to his master? That question cannot be answered till we have considered Mill's own position.

But I have now followed Bentham far enough to consider the more general characteristics of his doctrine.

I have tried, in the first place, to show what was the course of Bentham's own development; how his observation of certain legal abuses led him to attempt the foundation of a science of jurisprudence; how the difficulty of obtaining a hearing for his arguments led him to discover the power of 'Judge and Co.'; how he found out that behind 'Judge and Co.' were George III. and the base Sidmouth, and the whole band of obstructors entrenched within the 'matchless const.i.tution'; and how thus his attack upon the abuses of the penal law led him to attack the whole political framework of the country. I have also tried to show how Bentham's development coincided with that of the English reformers generally. They too began with attacking specific abuses. They were for 'reform, not revolution.' The const.i.tution satisfied them in the main: they boasted of the palladia of their liberties, 'trial by jury' and the 'Habeas Corpus' Act, and held Frenchmen to be frog-eating slaves in danger of _lettres de cachet_ and the Bastille. English public opinion in spite of many trammels had a potent influence. Their first impulse, therefore, was simply to get rid of the trammels--the abuses which had grown up from want of a thorough application of the ancient principles in their original purity. The English Whig, even of the more radical persuasion, was profoundly convinced that the foundations were sound, however unsatisfactory might be the superstructure. Thus, both Bentham and the reformers generally started--not from abstract principles, but from the a.s.sault upon particular abuses. This is the characteristic of the whole English movement, and gives the meaning of their claim to be 'practical.' The Utilitarians were the reformers on the old lines; and their philosophy meant simply a desire to systematise the ordinary common sense arguments. The philosophy congenial to this vein is the philosophy which appeals to experience. Locke had exploded 'innate ideas.' They denounced 'intuitions,' or beliefs which might override experience as 'innate ideas' in a new dress; and the attempt to carry out this view systematically became the distinctive mark of the whole school. Bentham accepted, though he did little to elaborate, this doctrine. That task remained for his disciples. But the tendency is shown by his view of a rival version of Radicalism.

Bentham, as we have seen, regarded the American Declaration of Independence as so much 'jargon.' He was entirely opposed to the theory of the 'rights of man,' and therefore to the 'ideas of 1789.' From that theory the revolutionary party professed to deduce their demands for universal suffrage, the levelling of all privileges, and the absolute supremacy of the people. Yet Bentham, repudiating the premises, came to accept the conclusion. His Const.i.tutional Code scarcely differs from the ideal of the Jacobins', except in pushing the logic further. The machinery by which he proposed to secure that the so-called rulers should become really the servants of the people was more thoroughgoing and minutely worked out than that of any democratic const.i.tution that has ever been adopted. How was it that two antagonist theories led to identical results; and that the 'rights of man,' absurd in philosophy, represented the ideal state of things in practice?

The general answer may be that political theories are not really based upon philosophy. The actual method is to take your politics for granted on the one side and your philosophy for granted on the other, and then to prove their necessary connection. But it is, at any rate, important to see what was the nature of the philosophical a.s.sumptions implicitly taken for granted by Bentham.

The 'rights of man' doctrine confounds a primary logical canon with a statement of fact. Every political theory must be based upon facts as well as upon logic. Any reasonable theory about politics must no doubt give a reason for inequality and a reason, too, for equality. The maxim that all men were, or ought to be, 'equal' a.s.serts correctly that there must not be arbitrary differences. Every inequality should have its justification in a reasonable system. But when this undeniable logical canon is taken to prove that men actually are equal, there is an obvious begging of the question. In point of fact, the theorists immediately proceeded to disfranchise half the race on account of s.e.x, and a third of the remainder on account of infancy. They could only amend the argument by saying that all men were equal in so far as they possessed certain attributes. But those attributes could only be determined by experience, or, as Bentham would have put it, by an appeal to 'utility.'

It is illogical, said the anti-slavery advocate, to treat men differently on account of the colour of their skins. No doubt it is illogical if, in fact, the difference of colour does not imply a difference of the powers which fit a man for the enjoyment of certain rights. We may at least grant that the burden of proof should be upon those who would disfranchise all red-haired men. But this is because experience shows that the difference of colour does not mark a relevant difference. We cannot say, _a priori_, whether the difference between a negro and a white man may not be so great as to imply incapacity for enjoyment of equal rights. The black skin might--for anything a mere logician can say--indicate the mind of a chimpanzee. The case against slavery does not rest on the bare fact that negroes and whites both belong to the cla.s.s 'man,' but on the fact that the negro has powers and sensibilities which fit him to hold property, to form marriages, to learn his letters, and so forth. But that fact is undeniably to be proved, not from the bare logic, but from observation of the particular case.

Bentham saw with perfect clearness that sound political theory requires a basis of solid fact. The main purpose of his whole system was to carry out that doctrine thoroughly. His view is given vigorously in the 'Anarchical Fallacies'--a minute examination of the French Declaration of Rights in 1791. His argument is of merciless length, and occasionally so minute as to sound like quibbling. The pith, however, is clear enough. 'All men are born and remain free and equal in respect of rights' are the first words of the Declaration. n.o.body is 'born free,'

retorts Bentham. Everybody is born, and long remains, a helpless child.

All men born free! Absurd and miserable nonsense! Why, you are complaining in the same breath that nearly everybody is a slave.[451] To meet this objection, the words might be amended by subst.i.tuting 'ought to be' for 'is.' This, however, on Bentham's showing, at once introduces the conception of utility, and therefore leads to empirical considerations. The proposition, when laid down as a logical necessity, claims to be absolute. Therefore it implies that all authority is bad; the authority, for example, of parent over child, or of husband over wife; and moreover, that all laws to the contrary are _ipso facto_ void.

That is why it is 'anarchical.' It supposes a 'natural right,' not only as suggesting reasons for proposed alterations of the legal right, but as actually annihilating the right and therefore destroying all government. '_Natural rights_,' says Bentham,[452] is simple nonsense; natural and imprescriptible rights 'rhetorical nonsense--nonsense upon stilts.' For 'natural right' subst.i.tute utility, and you have, of course, a reasonable principle, because an appeal to experience. But lay down 'liberty' as an absolute right and you annihilate law, for every law supposes coercion. One man gets liberty simply by restricting the liberty of others.[453] What Bentham substantially says, therefore, is that on this version absolute rights of individuals could mean nothing but anarchy; or that no law can be defended except by a reference to facts, and therefore to 'utility.'

One answer might be that the demand is not for absolute liberty, but for as much liberty as is compatible with equal liberty for all. The fourth article of the Declaration says: 'Liberty consists in being able to do that which is not hurtful to another, and therefore the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no other bounds than those which ensure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.'

This formula corresponds to a theory held by Mr. Herbert Spencer; and, as he observes,[454] held on different grounds by Kant. Bentham's view, indicated by his criticism of this article in the 'Anarchical Fallacies,' is therefore worth a moment's notice. The formula does not demand the absolute freedom which would condemn all coercion and all government; but it still seems to suggest that liberty, not utility, is the ultimate end. Bentham's formula, therefore, diverges. All government, he holds, is an evil, because coercion implies pain. We must therefore minimise, though we cannot annihilate, government; but we must keep to utility as the sole test. Government should, of course, give to the individual all such rights as are 'useful'; but it does not follow, without a reference to utility, that men should not be restrained even in 'self-regarding' conduct. Some men, women, and children require to be protected against the consequences of their own 'weakness, ignorance, or imprudence.'[455] Bentham adheres, that is, to the strictly empirical ground. The absolute doctrine requires to be qualified by a reference to actual circ.u.mstances: and, among those circ.u.mstances, as Bentham intimates, we must include the capacity of the persons concerned to govern themselves. Carried out as an absolute principle, it would imply the independence of infants; and must therefore require some reference to 'utility.'

Bentham, then, objects to the Jacobin theory as too absolute and too 'individualist.' The doctrine begs the question; it takes for granted what can only be proved by experience; and therefore lays down as absolute theories which are only true under certain conditions or with reference to the special circ.u.mstances to which they are applied. That is inconsistent with Bentham's thoroughgoing empiricism. But he had antagonists to meet upon the other side: and, in meeting them, he was led to a doctrine which has been generally condemned for the very same faults--as absolute and individualist. We have only to ask in what sense Bentham appealed to 'experience' to see how he actually reached his conclusions. The adherents of the old tradition appealed to experience in their own way. The English people, they said, is the freest, richest, happiest in the world; it has grown up under the British Const.i.tution: therefore the British Const.i.tution is the best in the world, as Burke tells you, and the British common law, as Blackstone tells you, is the 'perfection of wisdom.' Bentham's reply was virtually that although he, like Burke, appealed to experience, he appealed to experience scientifically organised, whereas Burke appealed to mere blind tradition. Bentham is to be the founder of a new science, founded like chemistry on experiment, and his methods are to be as superior to those of Burke as those of modern chemists to those of the alchemists who also invoked experience. The true plan was not to throw experience aside because it was alleged by the ignorant and the prejudiced, but to interrogate experience systematically, and so to become the Bacon or the Newton of legislation, instead of wandering off into the _a priori_ constructions of a Descartes or a Leibniz.

Bentham thus professes to use an 'inductive' instead of the deductive method of the Jacobins; but reaches the same practical conclusions from the other end. The process is instructive. He objected to the existing inequalities, not as inequalities simply, but as mischievous inequalities. He, as well as the Jacobins, would admit that inequality required justification; and he agreed with them that, in this case, there was no justification. The existing privileges did not promote the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number.' The attack upon the 'Anarchical Fallacies' must be taken with the _Book of Fallacies_, and the _Book of Fallacies_ is a sustained and vigorous, though a curiously c.u.mbrous, a.s.sault upon the Conservative arguments. Its pith may be found in Sydney Smith's _Noodle's Oration_; but it is itself well worth reading by any one who can recognise really admirable dialectical power, and forgive a little crabbedness of style in consideration of genuine intellectual vigour. I only notice Bentham's a.s.sault upon the 'wisdom of our ancestors.' After pointing out how much better we are ent.i.tled to judge now that we have got rid of so many superst.i.tions, and have learned to read and write, he replies to the question, 'Would you have us speak and act as if we never had any ancestors?' 'By no means,' he replies; 'though their opinions were of little value, their practice is worth attending to; but chiefly because it shows the bad consequences of their opinions.' 'From foolish opinion comes foolish conduct; from foolish conduct the severest disaster; and from the severest disaster the most useful warning. It is from the folly, not from the wisdom, of our ancestors that we have so much to learn.'[456] Bentham has become an 'ancestor,' and may teach us by his errors. Pointed and vigorous as is his exposure of many of the sophistries by which Conservatives defended gross abuses and twisted the existence of any inst.i.tution into an argument for its value, we get some measure from this of Bentham's view of history. In attacking an abuse, he says, we have a right to inquire into the utility of any and every arrangement. The purpose of a court of justice is to decide litigation; it has to ascertain facts and apply rules: does it then ascertain facts by the methods most conducive to the discovery of truth? Are the rules needlessly complex, ambiguous, calculated to give a chance to knaves, or to the longest purse? If so, undoubtedly they are mischievous. Bentham had done inestimable service in stripping away all the disguises and technical phrases which had evaded the plain issue, and therefore made of the laws an unintelligible labyrinth. He proceeded to treat in the same way of government generally. Does it work efficiently for its professed ends? Is it worked in the interests of the nation, or of a special cla.s.s, whose interests conflict with those of the nation? He treated, that is, of government as a man of business might investigate a commercial undertaking. If he found that clerks were lazy, ignorant, making money for themselves, or bullying and cheating the customers, he would condemn the management.

Bentham found the 'matchless const.i.tution' precisely in this state. He condemned political inst.i.tutions worked for the benefit of a cla.s.s, and leading, especially in legal matters, to endless abuses and chicanery.

The abuses everywhere imply 'inequality' in some sense; for they arise from monopoly. The man who holds a sinecure, or enjoys a privilege, uses it for his own private interest. The 'matter of corruption,' as Bentham called it, was provided by the privilege and the sinecure. The Jacobin might denounce privileges simply as privileges, and Bentham denounce them because they were used by the privileged cla.s.s for corrupt purposes. So far, Bentham and the Jacobins were quite at one. It mattered little to the result which argument they preferred to use, and without doubt they had a very strong case, and did in fact express a demand for justice and for a redress of palpable evils. The difference seems to be that in one case the appeal is made in the name of justice and equality; in the other case, in the name of benevolence and utility.

The important point here, however, is to understand Bentham's implicit a.s.sumptions. J. S. Mill, in criticising his master, points out very forcibly the defects arising from Bentham's att.i.tude to history. He simply continued, as Mill thinks, the hostility with which the critical or destructive school of the eighteenth century regarded their ancestors. To the revolutionary party history was a record of crimes and follies and of little else. The question will meet us again; and here it is enough to ask what is the reason of his tacit implication of Bentham's position. Bentham's whole aim, as I have tried to show, was to be described as the construction of a science of legislation. The science, again, was to be purely empirical. It was to rest throughout upon the observation of facts. That aim--an admirable aim--runs through his whole work and that of his successors. I have noticed, indeed, how easily Bentham took for granted that his makeshift cla.s.sification of common motives amounted to a scientific psychology. A similar a.s.sumption that a rough sketch of a science is the same thing as its definite const.i.tution is characteristic of the Utilitarians in general. A scientific spirit is most desirable; but the Utilitarians took a very short cut to scientific certainty. Though appealing to experience, they reach formulae as absolute as any 'intuitionist' could desire. What is the logical process implied? To const.i.tute an empirical science is to show that the difference between different phenomena is due simply to 'circ.u.mstances.' The explanation of the facts becomes sufficient when the 'law' can be stated, as that of a unit of constant properties placed in varying positions. This corresponds to the procedure in the physical sciences, where the ultimate aim is to represent all laws as corresponding to the changes of position of uniform atoms. In social and political changes the goal is the same. J. S. Mill states in the end of his _Autobiography_[457] that one main purpose of his writing was to show that 'differences between individuals, races, or s.e.xes' are due to 'differences in circ.u.mstances.' In fact, this is an aim so characteristic from the beginning of the whole school, that it may be put down almost as a primary postulate. It was not, indeed, definitely formulated; but to 'explain' a social theorem was taken to be the same thing as to show how differences of character or conduct could be explained by 'circ.u.mstance'--meaning by 'circ.u.mstance' something not given in the agent himself. We have, however, no more right as good empiricists to a.s.sert than to deny that all difference comes from 'circ.u.mstance.' If we take 'man' as a constant quant.i.ty in our speculations, it requires at least a great many precautions before we can a.s.sume that our abstract ent.i.ty corresponds to a real concrete unit.

Otherwise we have a short cut to a doctrine of 'equality.' The theory of 'the rights of man' lays down the formula, and a.s.sumes that the facts will correspond. The Utilitarian a.s.sumes the equality of fact, and of course brings out an equally absolute formula. 'Equality,' in some sense, is introduced by a side wind, though not explicitly laid down as an axiom.[458] This underlying tendency may partly explain the coincidence of results--though it would require a good many qualifications in detail; but here I need only take Bentham's more or less unconscious application.

Bentham's tacit a.s.sumption, in fact, is that there is an average 'man.'

Different specimens of the race, indeed, may vary widely according to age, s.e.x, and so forth; but, for purposes of legislation, he may serve as a unit. We can a.s.sume that he has on the average certain qualities from which his actions in the ma.s.s can be determined with sufficient accuracy, and we are tempted to a.s.sume that they are mainly the qualities obvious to an inhabitant of Queen's Square Place about the year 1800. Mill defends Bentham against the charge that he a.s.sumed his codes to be good for all men everywhere. To that, says Mill,[459] the essay upon the 'Influence of Time and Place in Matters of Legislation'

is a complete answer. Yet Mill[460] admits in the same breath that Bentham omitted all reference to 'national character.' In fact, as we have seen, Bentham was ready to legislate for Hindoostan as well as for his own parish; and to make codes not only for England, Spain, and Russia, but for Morocco. The Essay mentioned really explains the point.

Bentham not only admitted but a.s.serted as energetically as became an empiricist, that we must allow for 'circ.u.mstances'; and circ.u.mstances include not only climate and so forth, but the varying beliefs and customs of the people under consideration. The real a.s.sumption is that all such circ.u.mstances are superficial, and can be controlled and altered indefinitely by the 'legislator.' The Moor, the Hindoo, and the Englishman are all radically identical; and the differences which must be taken into account for the moment can be removed by judicious means.

Without pausing to ill.u.s.trate this from the Essay, I may remark that for many purposes such an a.s.sumption is justifiable and guides ordinary common sense. If we ask what would be the best const.i.tution for a commercial company, or the best platform for a political party, we can form a fair guess by arguing from the average of Bentham and his contemporaries--especially if we are shrewd attornies or political wirepullers. Only we are not therefore in a position to talk about the 'science of human nature' or to deal with problems of 'sociology.' This, however, gives Bentham's 'individualism' in a sense of the phrase already explained. He starts from the 'ready-made man,' and deduces all inst.i.tutions or legal arrangements from his properties. I have tried to show how naturally this view fell in with the ordinary political conceptions of the time. It shows, again, why Bentham disregards history. When we have such a science, empirical or _a priori_, history is at most of secondary importance. We can deduce all our maxims of conduct from the man himself as he is before us. History only shows how terribly he blundered in the pre-scientific period. The blunders may give us a hint here and there. Man was essentially the same in the first and the eighteenth century, and the differences are due to the clumsy devices which he made by rule of thumb. We do not want to refer to them now, except as ill.u.s.trations of errors. We may remark how difficult it was to count before the present notation was invented; but when it has once been invented, we may learn to use it without troubling our heads about our ancestors' clumsy contrivances for doing without it. This leads to the real shortcoming. There is a point at which the historical view becomes important--the point, namely, where it is essential to remember that man is not a ready-made article, but the product of a long and still continuing 'evolution.' Bentham's attack (in the _Fragment_) upon the 'social contract' is significant. He was, no doubt, perfectly right in saying that an imaginary contract could add no force to the ultimate grounds for the social union. n.o.body would now accept the fiction in that stage. And yet the 'social contract' may be taken to recognise a fact; namely, that the underlying instincts upon which society alternately rests correspond to an order of reasons from those which determine more superficial relations. Society is undoubtedly useful, and its utility may be regarded as its ground. But the utility of society means much more than the utility of a railway company or a club, which postulates as existing a whole series of already established inst.i.tutions. To Bentham an 'utility' appeared to be a kind of permanent and ultimate ent.i.ty which is the same at all periods--it corresponds to a psychological currency of constant value. To show, therefore, that the social contract recognises 'utility' is to show that the whole organism is constructed just as any particular part is constructed. Man comes first and 'society' afterwards. I have already noticed how this applies to his statements about the utility of a law; how his argument a.s.sumes an already const.i.tuted society, and seems to overlook the difference between the organic law upon which all order essentially depends, and some particular modification or corollary which may be superinduced. We now have to notice the political version of the same method. The 'law,'

according to Bentham, is a rule enforced by a 'sanction.' The imposer of the rule in the phrase which Hobbes had made famous is the 'sovereign.'

Hobbes was a favourite author, indeed, of the later Utilitarians, though Bentham does not appear to have studied him. The relation is one of natural affinity. When in the _Const.i.tutional Code_ Bentham transfers the 'sovereignty' from the king to the 'people,'[461] he shows the exact difference between his doctrine and that of the _Leviathan_. Both thinkers are absolutists in principle, though Hobbes gives to a monarch the power which Bentham gives to a democracy. The attributes remain though their subject is altered. The 'sovereign,' in fact, is the keystone of the whole Utilitarian system. He represents the ultimate source of all authority, and supplies the motive for all obedience. As Hobbes put it, he is a kind of mortal G.o.d.

Mill's criticism of Bentham suggests the consequences. There are, he says,[462] three great questions: What government is for the good of the people? How are they to be induced to obey it? How is it to be made responsible? The third question, he says, is the only one seriously considered by Bentham; and Bentham's answer, we have seen, leads to that 'tyranny of the majority' which was Mill's great stumbling-block. Why, then, does Bentham omit the other questions? or rather, how would he answer them? for he certainly a.s.sumes an answer. People, in the first place, are 'induced to obey' by the sanctions. They don't rob that they may not go to prison. That is a sufficient answer at a given moment. It a.s.sumes, indeed, that the law will be obeyed. The policeman, the gaoler, and the judge will do what the sovereign--whether despot or legislature--orders them to do. The jurist may naturally take this for granted. He does not go 'behind the law.' That is the law which the sovereign has declared to be the law. In that sense, the sovereign is omnipotent. He can, as a fact, threaten evildoers with the gallows; and the jurist simply takes the fact for granted, and a.s.sumes that the coercion is an ultimate fact. No doubt it is ultimate for the individual subject. The immediate restraint is the policeman, and we need not ask upon what does the policeman depend. If, however, we persist in asking, we come to the historical problems which Bentham simply omits. The law itself, in fact, ultimately rests upon 'custom,'--upon the whole system of instincts, beliefs, and pa.s.sions which induce people to obey government, and are, so to speak, the substance out of which loyalty and respect for the law is framed. These, again, are the product of an indefinitely long elaboration, which Bentham takes for granted. He a.s.sumes as perfectly natural and obvious that a number of men should meet, as the Americans or Frenchmen met, and create a const.i.tution. That the possibility of such a proceeding involves centuries of previous training does not occur to him. It is a.s.sumed that the const.i.tution can be made out of hand, and this a.s.sumption is of the highest importance, not only historically, but for immediate practice. Mill a.s.sumes too easily that Bentham has secured responsibility. Bentham a.s.sumes that an inst.i.tution will work as it is intended to work--perhaps the commonest error of const.i.tution-mongers. If the people use the instruments which he provides, they have a legal method for enforcing obedience. To infer that they will do so is to infer that all the organic instincts will operate precisely as he intends; that each individual, for example, will form an independent opinion upon legislative questions, vote for men who will apply his opinions, and see that his representatives perform his bidding honestly. That they should do so is essential to his scheme; but that they will do so is what he takes for granted. He a.s.sumes, that is, that there is no need for inquiring into the social instincts which lie beneath all political action. You can make your machine and a.s.sume the moving force. That is the natural result of considering political and legislative problems without taking into account the whole character of the human materials employed in the construction. Bentham's sovereign is thus absolute. He rules by coercion, as a foreign power may rule by the sword in a conquered province. Thus, force is the essence of government, and it is needless to go further. To secure the right application of the force, we have simply to distribute it among the subjects. Government still means coercion, and ultimately nothing else; but then, as the subjects are simply moved by their own interests, that is, by utility, they will apply the power to secure those interests. Therefore, all that is wanted is this distribution, and Mill's first problem, What government is for the good of the people? is summarily answered. The question, how obedience is to be secured, is evaded by confining the answer to the 'sanctions,' and taking for granted that the process of distributing power is perfectly simple, or that a new order can be introduced as easily as parliament can pa.s.s an act for establishing a new police in London. The 'social contract' is abolished; but it is taken for granted that the whole power of the sovereign can be distributed, and rules made for its application by the common sense of the various persons interested. Finally, the one bond outside of the individual is the sovereign. He represents all that holds society together; his 'sanctions,' as I have said, are taken to be on the same plane with the 'moral sanctions'--not dependent upon them, but other modes of applying similar motives. As the sovereign, again, is in a sense omnipotent, and yet can be manufactured, so to speak, by voluntary arrangements among the individual members of society, there is no limit to the influence which he may exercise. I note, indeed, that I am speaking rather of the tendencies of the theory than of definitely formulated conclusions. Most of the Utilitarians were exceedingly shrewd, practical people, whose regard for hard facts imposed limits upon their speculations. They should have been the last people to believe too implicitly in the magical efficacy of political contrivances, for they were fully aware that many men are knaves and most men fools. They probably put little faith in Bentham's Utopia, except as a remote ideal, and an ideal of unimaginative minds. The Utopia was constructed on 'individualist' principles, because common sense naturally approves individualism. The whole social and political order is clearly the sum of the individuals, who combine to form an aggregate; and theories about social bonds take one to the mystical and sentimental. The absolute tendency is common to Bentham and the Jacobins. Whether the individual be taken as a unit of constant properties, or as the subject of absolute rights, we reach equally absolute conclusions. When all the social and political regulations are regarded as indefinitely modifiable, the ultimate laws come to depend upon the absolute framework of unalterable fact. This, again, is often the right point of view for immediate questions in which we may take for granted that the average individual is in fact constant; and, as I have said in regard to Bentham's legislative process, leads to very relevant and important, though not ultimate, questions. But there are certain other results which require to be noticed. 'Individualism,' like other words that have become watchwords of controversy, has various shades of meaning, and requires a little more definition.

NOTES:

[434] _Works_, v. 97, etc.

[435] See preface to _Const.i.tutional Code_ in vol. ix.

[436] Bentham's nephew, George, who died when approaching his eighty-fourth birthday, devoted the last twenty-five years of his life with equal a.s.siduity to his _Genera Plantarum_. See a curious anecdote of his persistence in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.

[437] _Works_, iii. 573.

[438] _Works_, ix. 5, 8.

[439] The theory, as Mill reminds us, had been very pointedly antic.i.p.ated by Helvetius. Bentham's practical experience, however, had forced it upon his attention.

[440] _Works_, ix. 141. The general principle, however, is confirmed by the case of George III.

[441] _Ibid._ ix. 45.

[442] _Ibid._ ix. 98.

[443] _Works_, ix. 98.

[444] e.g. _Ibid._ ix. 38, 50, 63, 99, etc.