We have no dispute on these heads with Mr Bentham. On the contrary, we think his explanation true--or at least, true in part; and we heartily thank him for lending us his a.s.sistance to demolish the essay of his follower. His wit and his sarcasm are sport to us; but they are death to his unhappy disciple.
Mr Bentham seems to imagine that we have said something implying an opinion favourable to despotism. We can scarcely suppose that, as he has not condescended to read that portion of our work which he undertook to answer, he can have bestowed much attention on its general character.
Had he done so he would, we think, scarcely have entertained such a suspicion. Mr Mill a.s.serts, and pretends to prove, that under no despotic government does any human being, except the tools of the sovereign, possess more than the necessaries of life, and that the most intense degree of terror is kept up by constant cruelty. This, we say, is untrue. It is not merely a rule to which there are exceptions: but it is not the rule. Despotism is bad; but it is scarcely anywhere so bad as Mr Mill says that it is everywhere. This we are sure Mr Bentham will allow. If a man were to say that five hundred thousand people die every year in London of dram-drinking, he would not a.s.sert a proposition more monstrously false than Mr Mill"s. Would it be just to charge us with defending intoxication because we might say that such a man was grossly in the wrong?
We say with Mr Bentham that despotism is a bad thing. We say with Mr Bentham that the exceptions do not destroy the authority of the rule.
But this we say--that a single exception overthrows an argument which either does not prove the rule at all, or else proves the rule to be TRUE WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS; and such an argument is Mr Mill"s argument against despotism. In this respect there is a great difference between rules drawn from experience and rules deduced a priori. We might believe that there had been a fall of snow last August, and yet not think it likely that there would be snow next August. A single occurrence opposed to our general experience would tell for very little in our calculation of the chances. But, if we could once satisfy ourselves that in ANY single right-angled triangle the square of the hypothenuse might be less than the squares of the sides, we must reject the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid altogether. We willingly adopt Mr Bentham"s lively ill.u.s.tration about the wolf; and we will say in pa.s.sing that it gives us real pleasure to see how little old age has diminished the gaiety of this eminent man. We can a.s.sure him that his merriment gives us far more pleasure on his account than pain on our own. We say with him, Keep the wolf out of the nursery, in spite of the story of Romulus and Remus.
But, if the shepherd who saw the wolf licking and suckling those famous twins were, after telling this story to his companions, to a.s.sert that it was an infallible rule that no wolf ever had spared, or ever would spare, any living thing which might fall in its way--that its nature was carnivorous--and that it could not possibly disobey its nature, we think that the hearers might have been excused for staring. It may be strange, but is not inconsistent, that a wolf which has eaten ninety-nine children should spare the hundredth. But the fact that a wolf has once spared a child is sufficient to show that there must be some flaw in the chain of reasoning purporting to prove that wolves cannot possibly spare children.
Mr Bentham proceeds to attack another position which he conceives us to maintain:--
"Secondly, That a government not under the control of the community (for there is no question upon any other) "MAY SOON BE SATURATED." Tell it not in Bow Street, whisper it not in Hatton Garden,--that there is a plan for preventing injustice by "saturation." With what peals of unearthly merriment would Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus be aroused upon their benches, if the "light wings of saffron and of blue" should bear this theory into their grim domains! Why do not the owners of pocket-handkerchiefs try to "saturate?" Why does not the cheated publican beg leave to check the gulosity of his defrauder with a repetatur haustus, and the pummelled plaintiff neutralise the malice of his adversary, by requesting to have the rest of the beating in presence of the court,--if it is not that such conduct would run counter to all the conclusions of experience, and be the procreation of the mischief it affected to destroy? Woful is the man whose wealth depends on his having more than somebody else can be persuaded to take from him; and woful also is the people that is in such a case!"
Now this is certainly very pleasant writing: but there is no great difficulty in answering the argument. The real reason which makes it absurd to think of preventing theft by pensioning off thieves is this, that there is no limit to the number of thieves. If there were only a hundred thieves in a place, and we were quite sure that no person not already addicted to theft would take to it, it might become a question whether to keep the thieves from dishonesty by raising them above distress would not be a better course than to employ officers against them. But the actual cases are not parallel. Every man who chooses can become a thief; but a man cannot become a king or a member of the aristocracy whenever he chooses. The number of the depredators is limited; and therefore the amount of depredation, so far as physical pleasures are concerned, must be limited also. Now, we made the remark which Mr Bentham censures with reference to physical pleasures only. The pleasures of ostentation, of taste, of revenge, and other pleasures of the same description, have, we distinctly allowed, no limit. Our words are these:--"a king or an aristocracy may be supplied to satiety with CORPORAL PLEASURES, at an expense which the rudest and poorest community would scarcely feel." Does Mr Bentham deny this? If he does, we leave him to Mr Mill. "What," says that philosopher, in his Essay on Education, "what are the ordinary pursuits of wealth and power, which kindle to such a height the ardour of mankind? Not the mere love of eating and of drinking, or all the physical objects together which wealth can purchase or power command. With these every man is in the long run speedily satisfied." What the difference is between being speedily satisfied and being soon saturated, we leave Mr Bentham and Mr Mill to settle together.
The word "saturation," however, seems to provoke Mr Bentham"s mirth. It certainly did not strike us as very pure English; but, as Mr Mill used it, we supposed it to be good Benthamese. With the latter language we are not critically acquainted, though, as it has many roots in common with our mother tongue, we can contrive, by the help of a converted Utilitarian, who attends us in the capacity of Moonshee, to make out a little. But Mr Bentham"s authority is of course decisive; and we bow to it.
Mr Bentham next represents us as maintaining:--
"Thirdly, That "though there may be some tastes and propensities that have no point of saturation, there exists a sufficient check in the desire of the good opinion of others." The misfortune of this argument is, that no man cares for the good opinion of those he has been accustomed to wrong, If oysters have opinions, it is probable they think very ill of those who eat them in August; but small is the effect upon the autumnal glutton that engulfs their gentle substances within his own. The planter and the slave-driver care just as much about negro opinion, as the epicure about the sentiments of oysters. M. Ude throwing live eels into the fire as a kindly method of divesting them of the unsavoury oil that lodges beneath their skins, is not more convinced of the immense aggregate of good which arises to the lordlier parts of the creation, than is the gentle peer who strips his fellow man of country and of family for a wild-fowl slain. The goodly landowner, who lives by morsels squeezed indiscriminately from the waxy hands of the cobbler and the polluted ones of the nightman, is in no small degree the object of both hatred and contempt; but it is to be feared that he is a long way from feeling them to be intolerable. The principle of "At mihi plaudo ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca," is sufficient to make a wide interval between the opinions of the plaintiff and defendant in such cases. In short, to banish law and leave all plaintiffs to trust to the desire of reputation on the opposite side, would only be transporting the theory of the Whigs from the House of Commons to Westminster Hall."
Now, in the first place, we never maintained the proposition which Mr Bentham puts into our mouths. We said, and say, that there is a CERTAIN check to the rapacity and cruelty of men, in their desire of the good opinion of others. We never said that it was sufficient. Let Mr Mill show it to be insufficient. It is enough for us to prove that there is a set-off against the principle from which Mr Mill deduces the whole theory of government. The balance may be, and, we believe, will be, against despotism and the narrower forms of aristocracy. But what is this to the correctness or incorrectness of Mr Mill"s accounts? The question is not, whether the motives which lead rulers to behave ill are stronger than those which lead them to behave well;--but, whether we ought to form a theory of government by looking ONLY at the motives which lead rulers to behave ill and never noticing those which lead them to behave well.
Absolute rulers, says Mr Bentham, do not care for the good opinion of their subjects; for no man cares for the good opinion of those whom he has been accustomed to wrong. By Mr Bentham"s leave, this is a plain begging of the question. The point at issue is this:--Will kings and n.o.bles wrong the people? The argument in favour of kings and n.o.bles is this:--they will not wrong the people, because they care for the good opinion of the people. But this argument Mr Bentham meets thus:--they will not care for the good opinion of the people, because they are accustomed to wrong the people.
Here Mr Mill differs, as usual, from Mr Bentham. "The greatest princes,"
says he, in his Essay on Education, "the most despotical masters of human destiny, when asked what they aim at by their wars and conquests, would answer, if sincere, as Frederick of Prussia answered, pour faire parler de soi;--to occupy a large s.p.a.ce in the admiration of mankind."
Putting Mr Mill"s and Mr Bentham"s principles together, we might make out very easily that "the greatest princes, the most despotical masters of human destiny," would never abuse their power.
A man who has been long accustomed to injure people must also have been long accustomed to do without their love, and to endure their aversion.
Such a man may not miss the pleasure of popularity; for men seldom miss a pleasure which they have long denied themselves. An old tyrant does without popularity just as an old water-drinker does without wine. But, though it is perfectly true that men who for the good of their health have long abstained from wine feel the want of it very little, it would be absurd to infer that men will always abstain from wine when their health requires that they should do so. And it would be equally absurd to say, because men who have been accustomed to oppress care little for popularity, that men will therefore necessarily prefer the pleasure of oppression to those of popularity.
Then, again, a man may be accustomed to wrong people in one point and not in another. He may care for their good opinion with regard to one point and not with regard to another. The Regent Orleans laughed at charges of impiety, libertinism, extravagance, idleness, disgraceful promotions. But the slightest allusion to the charge of poisoning threw him into convulsions. Louis the Fifteenth braved the hatred and contempt of his subjects during many years of the most odious and imbecile misgovernment. But, when a report was spread that he used human blood for his baths, he was almost driven mad by it. Surely Mr Bentham"s position "that no man cares for the good opinion of those whom he has been accustomed to wrong" would be objectionable, as far too sweeping and indiscriminate, even if it did not involve, as in the present case we have shown that it does, a direct begging of the question at issue.
Mr Bentham proceeds:--
"Fourthly, The Edinburgh Reviewers are of opinion, that "it might, with no small plausibility, be maintained, that in many countries, there are two cla.s.ses which, in some degree, answer to this description;" [viz.]
"that the poor compose the cla.s.s which government is established to restrain; and the people of some property the cla.s.s to which the powers of government may without danger be confided."
"They take great pains, it is true, to say this and not to say it. They shuffle and creep about, to secure a hole to escape at, if "what they do not a.s.sert" should be found in any degree inconvenient. A man might waste his life in trying to find out whether the Misses of the "Edinburgh" mean to say Yes or No in their political coquetry. But whichever way the lovely spinsters may decide, it is diametrically opposed to history and the evidence of facts, that the poor ARE the cla.s.s whom there is any difficulty in restraining. It is not the poor but the rich that have a propensity to take the property of other people. There is no instance upon earth of the poor having combined to take away the property of the rich; and all the instances habitually brought forward in support of it are gross misrepresentations, founded upon the most necessary acts of self-defence on the part of the most numerous cla.s.ses. Such a misrepresentation is the common one of the Agrarian law; which was nothing but an attempt on the part of the Roman people to get back some part of what had been taken from them by undisguised robbery. Such another is the stock example of the French Revolution, appealed to by the "Edinburgh Review" in the actual case.
It is utterly untrue that the French Revolution took place because "the poor began to compare their cottages and salads with the hotels and banquets of the rich;" it took place because they were robbed of their cottages and salads to support the hotels and banquets of their oppressors. It is utterly untrue that there was either a scramble for property or a general confiscation; the cla.s.ses who took part with the foreign invaders lost their property, as they would have done here, and ought to do everywhere. All these are the vulgar errors of the man on the lion"s back,--which the lion will set to rights when he can tell his own story. History is nothing but the relation of the sufferings of the poor from the rich; except precisely so far as the numerous cla.s.ses of the community have contrived to keep the virtual power in their hands, or, in other words, to establish free governments. If a poor man injures the rich, the law is instantly at his heels; the injuries of the rich towards the poor are always inflicted BY the law. And to enable the rich to do this to any extent that may be practicable or prudent, there is clearly one postulate required, which is, that the rich shall make the law."
This pa.s.sage is alone sufficient to prove that Mr Bentham has not taken the trouble to read our article from beginning to end. We are quite sure that he would not stoop to misrepresent it. And, if he had read it with any attention, he would have perceived that all this coquetry, this hesitation, this Yes and No, this saying and not saying, is simply an exercise of the undeniable right which in controversy belongs to the defensive side--to the side which proposes to establish nothing. The affirmative of the issue and the burden of the proof are with Mr Mill, not with us. We are not bound, perhaps we are not able, to show that the form of government which he recommends is bad. It is quite enough if we can show that he does not prove it to be good. In his proof, among many other flaws, is this--He says, that if men are not inclined to plunder each other, government is unnecessary, and that, if men are so inclined, kings and aristocracies will plunder the people. Now, this we say, is a fallacy. That SOME men will plunder their neighbours if they can, is a sufficient reason for the existence of governments. But it is not demonstrated that kings and aristocracies will plunder the people, unless it be true that ALL men will plunder their neighbours, if they can. Men are placed in very different situations. Some have all the bodily pleasures that they desire, and many other pleasures besides, without plundering anybody. Others can scarcely obtain their daily bread without plundering. It may be true, but surely it is not self-evident, that the former cla.s.s is under as strong temptations to plunder as the latter. Mr Mill was therefore bound to prove it. That he has not proved it is one of thirty or forty fatal errors in his argument. It is not necessary that we should express an opinion or even have an opinion on the subject. Perhaps we are in a state of perfect scepticism: but what then? Are we the theorymakers? When we bring before the world a theory of government, it will be time to call upon us to offer proof at every step. At present we stand on our undoubted logical right. We concede nothing; and we deny nothing. We say to the Utilitarian theorists:--When you prove your doctrine, we will believe it; and, till you prove it, we will not believe it.
Mr Bentham has quite misunderstood what we said about the French Revolution. We never alluded to that event for the purpose of proving that the poor were inclined to rob the rich. Mr Mill"s principles of human nature furnished us with that part of our argument ready-made.
We alluded to the French Revolution for the purpose of ill.u.s.trating the effects which general spoliation produces on society, not for the purpose of showing that general spoliation will take place under a democracy. We allowed distinctly that, in the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the French monarchy, the Revolution, though accompanied by a great shock to the inst.i.tution of property, was a blessing. Surely Mr Bentham will not maintain that the injury produced by the deluge of a.s.signats and by the maximum fell only on the emigrants,--or that there were not many emigrants who would have stayed and lived peaceably under any government if their persons and property had been secure.
We never said that the French Revolution took place because the poor began to compare their cottages and salads with the hotels and banquets of the rich. We were not speaking about THE CAUSES of the Revolution, or thinking about them. This we said, and say, that, if a democratic government had been established in France, the poor, when they began to compare their cottages and salads with the hotels and banquets of the rich, would, on the supposition that Mr Mill"s principles are sound, have plundered the rich, and repeated without provocation all the severities and confiscations which at the time of the Revolution, were committed with provocation. We say that Mr Mill"s favourite form of government would, if his own views of human nature be just, make those violent convulsions and transfers of property which now rarely happen, except, as in the case of the French Revolution, when the people are maddened by oppression, events of annual or biennial occurrence. We gave no opinion of our own. We give none now. We say that this proposition may be proved from Mr Mill"s own premises, by steps strictly a.n.a.logous to those by which he proves monarchy and aristocracy to be bad forms of government. To say this, is not to say that the proposition is true.
For we hold both Mr Mill"s premises and his deduction to be unsound throughout.
Mr Bentham challenges us to prove from history that the people will plunder the rich. What does history say to Mr Mill"s doctrine, that absolute kings will always plunder their subjects so unmercifully as to leave nothing but a bare subsistence to any except their own creatures?
If experience is to be the test, Mr Mill"s theory is unsound. If Mr Mill"s reasoning a priori be sound, the people in a democracy will plunder the rich. Let us use one weight and one measure. Let us not throw history aside when we are proving a theory, and take it up again when we have to refute an objection founded on the principles of that theory.
We have not done, however, with Mr Bentham"s charges against us.
"Among other specimens of their ingenuity, they think they embarra.s.s the subject by asking why, on the principles in question, women should not have votes as well as men. AND WHY NOT?
"Gentle shepherd, tell me why?"--
If the mode of election was what it ought to be, there would be no more difficulty in women voting for a representative in Parliament than for a director at the India House. The world will find out at some time that the readiest way to secure justice on some points is to be just on all:--that the whole is easier to accomplish than the part; and that, whenever the camel is driven through the eye of the needle, it would be simple folly and debility that would leave a hoof behind."
Why, says or sings Mr Bentham, should not women vote? It may seem uncivil in us to turn a deaf ear to his Arcadian warblings. But we submit, with great deference, that it is not OUR business to tell him why. We fully agree with him that the principle of female suffrage is not so palpably absurd that a chain of reasoning ought to be p.r.o.nounced unsound merely because it leads to female suffrage. We say that every argument which tells in favour of the universal suffrage of the males tells equally in favour of female suffrage. Mr Mill, however, wishes to see all men vote, but says that it is unnecessary that women should vote; and for making this distinction HE gives as a reason an a.s.sertion which, in the first place, is not true, and which, in the next place, would, if true, overset his whole theory of human nature; namely, that the interest of the women is identical with that of the men. We side with Mr Bentham, so far, at least, as this: that, when we join to drive the camel through the needle, he shall go through hoof and all. We at present desire to be excused from driving the camel. It is Mr Mill who leaves the hoof behind. But we should think it uncourteous to reproach him in the language which Mr Bentham, in the exercise of his paternal authority over the sect, thinks himself ent.i.tled to employ.
"Another of their perverted ingenuities is, that "they are rather inclined to think," that it would, on the whole, be for the interest of the majority to plunder the rich; and if so, the Utilitarians will say that the rich OUGHT to be plundered. On which it is sufficient to reply, that for the majority to plunder the rich would amount to a declaration that n.o.body should be rich; which, as all men wish to be rich, would involve a suicide of hope. And as n.o.body has shown a fragment of reason why such a proceeding should be for the general happiness, it does not follow that the "Utilitarians" would recommend it. The Edinburgh Reviewers have a waiting gentlewoman"s ideas of "Utilitarianism." It is unsupported by anything but the pitiable "We are rather inclined to think"--and is utterly contradicted by the whole course of history and human experience besides,--that there is either danger or possibility of such a consummation as the majority agreeing on the plunder of the rich.
There have been instances in human memory, of their agreeing to plunder rich oppressors, rich traitors, rich enemies,--but the rich simpliciter never. It is as true now as in the days of Harrington that "a people never will, nor ever can, never did, nor ever shall, take up arms for levelling." All the commotions in the world have been for something else; and "levelling" is brought forward as the blind to conceal what the other was."
We say, again and again, that we are on the defensive. We do not think it necessary to prove that a quack medicine is poison. Let the vendor prove it to be sanative. We do not pretend to show that universal suffrage is an evil. Let its advocates show it to be a good. Mr Mill tells us that, if power be given for short terms to representatives elected by all the males of mature age, it will then be for the interest of those representatives to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number. To prove this, it is necessary that he should prove three propositions: first, that the interest of such a representative body will be identical with the interest of the const.i.tuent body; secondly, that the interest of the const.i.tuent body will be identical with that of the community; thirdly, that the interest of one generation of a community is identical with that of all succeeding generations. The two first propositions Mr Mill attempts to prove and fails. The last he does not even attempt to prove. We therefore refuse our a.s.sent to his conclusions. Is this unreasonable?
We never even dreamed, what Mr Bentham conceives us to have maintained, that it could be for the greatest happiness of MANKIND to plunder the rich. But we are "rather inclined to think," though doubtingly and with a disposition to yield to conviction, that it may be for the pecuniary interest of the majority of a single generation in a thickly-peopled country to plunder the rich. Why we are inclined to think so we will explain, whenever we send a theory of government to an Encyclopaedia.
At present we are bound to say only that we think so, and shall think so till somebody shows us a reason for thinking otherwise.
Mr Bentham"s answer to us is simple a.s.sertion. He must not think that we mean any discourtesy by meeting it with a simple denial. The fact is, that almost all the governments that have ever existed in the civilised world have been, in part at least, monarchical and aristocratical. The first government const.i.tuted on principles approaching to those which the Utilitarians hold was, we think, that of the United States. That the poor have never combined to plunder the rich in the governments of the old world, no more proves that they might not combine to plunder the rich under a system of universal suffrage, than the fact that the English kings of the House of Brunswick have not been Neros and Domitians proves that sovereigns may safely be intrusted with absolute power. Of what the people would do in a state of perfect sovereignty we can judge only by indications, which, though rarely of much moment in themselves, and though always suppressed with little difficulty, are yet of great significance, and resemble those by which our domestic animals sometimes remind us that they are of kin with the fiercest monsters of the forest. It would not be wise to reason from the behaviour of a dog crouching under the lash, which is the case of the Italian people, or from the behaviour of a dog pampered with the best morsels of a plentiful kitchen, which is the case of the purpose of America, to the behaviour of a wolf, which is nothing but a dog run wild, after a week"s fast among the snows of the Pyrenees. No commotion, says Mr Bentham, was ever really produced by the wish of levelling; the wish has been put forward as a blind; but something else has been the real object. Grant all this. But why has levelling been put forward as a blind in times of commotion to conceal the real objects of the agitators? Is it with declarations which involve "a suicide of hope" that man attempt to allure others? Was famine, pestilence, slavery, ever held out to attract the people? If levelling has been made a pretence for disturbances, the argument against Mr Bentham"s doctrine is as strong as if it had been the real object of disturbances.
But the great objection which Mr Bentham makes to our review, still remains to be noticed:--
"The pith of the charge against the author of the Essays is, that he has written "an elaborate Treatise on Government," and "deduced the whole science from the a.s.sumption of certain propensities of human nature."
Now, in the name of Sir Richard Birnie and all saints, from what else SHOULD it be deduced? What did ever anybody imagine to be the end, object, and design of government AS IT OUGHT TO BE but the same operation, on an extended scale, which that meritorious chief magistrate conducts on a limited one at Bow Street; to wit, the preventing one man from injuring another? Imagine, then, that the Whiggery of Bow Street were to rise up against the proposition that their science was to be deduced from "certain propensities of human nature," and thereon were to ratiocinate as follows:--
""How then are we to arrive at just conclusions on a subject so important to the happiness of mankind? Surely by that method, which, in every experimental science to which it has been applied, has signally increased the power and knowledge of our species,--by that method for which our new philosophers would subst.i.tute quibbles scarcely worthy of the barbarous respondents and opponents of the middle ages,--by the method of induction,--by observing the present state of the world,--by a.s.siduously studying the history of past ages,--by sifting the evidence of facts,--by carefully combining and contrasting those which are authentic,--by generalising with judgment and diffidence,--by perpetually bringing the theory which we have constructed to the test of new facts,--by correcting, or altogether abandoning it, according as those new facts prove it to be partially or fundamentally unsound.
Proceeding thus,--patiently, diligently, candidly, we may hope to form a system as far inferior in pretension to that which we have been examining, and as far superior to it in real utility, as the prescriptions of a great physician, varying with every stage of every malady, and with the const.i.tution of every patient, to the pill of the advertising quack, which is to cure all human beings, in all climates, of all diseases."
"Fancy now,--only fancy,--the delivery of these wise words at Bow Street; and think how speedily the practical catchpolls would reply, that all this might be very fine, but, as far as they had studied history, the naked story was, after all, that numbers of men had a propensity to thieving, and their business was to catch them; that they, too, had been sifters of facts; and, to say the truth, their simple opinion was, that their brethren of the red waistcoat--though they should be sorry to think ill of any man--had somehow contracted a leaning to the other side, and were more bent on puzzling the case for the benefit of the defendants, than on doing the duty of good officers and true. Such would, beyond all doubt, be the sentence pa.s.sed on such trimmers in the microcosm of Bow Street. It might not absolutely follow that they were in a plot to rob the goldsmiths" shops, or to set fire to the House of Commons; but it would be quite clear that they had got A FEELING,--that they were in process of siding with the thieves,--and that it was not to them that any man must look who was anxious that pantries should be safe."
This is all very witty; but it does not touch us. On the present occasion, we cannot but flatter ourselves that we bear a much greater resemblance to a practical catchpoll than either Mr Mill or Mr Bentham.
It would, to be sure, be very absurd in a magistrate discussing the arrangements of a police-office, to spout in the style either of our article or Mr Bentham"s; but, in substance, he would proceed, if he were a man of sense, exactly as WE recommend. He would, on being appointed to provide for the security of property in a town, study attentively the state of the town. He would learn at what places, at what times, and under what circ.u.mstances, theft and outrage were most frequent. Are the streets, he would ask, most infested with thieves at sunset or at midnight? Are there any public places of resort which give peculiar facilities to pickpockets? Are there any districts completely inhabited by a lawless population? Which are the flash houses, and which the shops of receivers? Having made himself master of the facts, he would act accordingly. A strong detachment of officers might be necessary for Petticoat Lane; another for the pit entrance of Covent Garden Theatre.
Grosvenor Square and Hamilton Place would require little or no protection. Exactly thus should we reason about government. Lombardy is oppressed by tyrants; and const.i.tutional checks, such as may produce security to the people, are required. It is, so to speak, one of the resorts of thieves; and there is great need of police-officers. Denmark resembles one of those respectable streets in which it is scarcely necessary to station a catchpoll, because the inhabitants would at once join to seize a thief. Yet, even in such a street, we should wish to see an officer appear now and then, as his occasional superintence would render the security more complete. And even Denmark, we think, would be better off under a const.i.tutional form of government.
Mr Mill proceeds like a director of police, who, without asking a single question about the state of his district, should give his orders thus:--"My maxim is, that every man will take what he can. Every man in London would be a thief, but for the thieftakers. This is an undeniable principle of human nature. Some of my predecessors have wasted their time in enquiring about particular p.a.w.nbrokers, and particular alehouses. Experience is altogether divided. Of people placed in exactly the same situation, I see that one steals, and that another would sooner burn his hand off. THEREFORE I trust to the laws of human nature alone, and p.r.o.nounce all men thieves alike. Let everybody, high and low, be watched. Let Townsend take particular care that the Duke of Wellington does not steal the silk handkerchief of the lord in waiting at the levee. A person has lost a watch. Go to Lord Fitzwilliam and search him for it; he is as great a receiver of stolen goods as Ikey Solomons himself. Don"t tell me about his rank, and character, and fortune. He is a man; and a man does not change his nature when he is called a lord.
("If Government is founded upon this, as a law of human nature, that a man, if able, will take from others anything which they have and he desires, it is sufficiently evident that when a man is called a king, he does not change his nature, so that, when he has power to take what he pleases, he will take what he pleases. To suppose that he will not, is to affirm that government is unnecessary and that human beings will abstain from injuring one another of their own accord."--"Mill on Government".) Either men will steal or they will not steal. If they will not, why do I sit here? If they will, his lordship must be a thief." The Whiggery of Bow Street would perhaps rise up against this wisdom. Would Mr Bentham think that the Whiggery of Bow Street was in the wrong?
We blamed Mr Mill for deducing his theory of government from the principles of human nature. "In the name of Sir Richard Birnie and all saints," cries Mr Bentham, "from what else should it be deduced?"
In spite of this solemn adjuration, with shall venture to answer Mr Bentham"s question by another. How does he arrive at those principles of human nature from which he proposes to deduce the science of government?
We think that we may venture to put an answer into his mouth; for in truth there is but one possible answer. He will say--By experience.
But what is the extent of this experience? Is it an experience which includes experience of the conduct of men intrusted with the powers of government; or is it exclusive of that experience? If it includes experience of the manner in which men act when intrusted with the powers of government, then those principles of human nature from which the science of government is to be deduced can only be known after going through that inductive process by which we propose to arrive at the science of government. Our knowledge of human nature, instead of being prior in order to our knowledge of the science of government, will be posterior to it. And it would be correct to say, that by means of the science of government, and of other kindred sciences--the science of education, for example, which falls under exactly the same principle--we arrive at the science of human nature.
If, on the other hand, we are to deduce the theory of government from principles of human nature, in arriving at which principles we have not taken into the account the manner in which men act when invested with the powers of government, then those principles must be defective.
They have not been formed by a sufficiently copious induction. We are reasoning, from what a man does in one situation, to what he will do in another. Sometimes we may be quite justified in reasoning thus. When we have no means of acquiring information about the particular case before us, we are compelled to resort to cases which bear some resemblance to it. But the more satisfactory course is to obtain information about the particular case; and, whenever this can be obtained, it ought to be obtained. When first the yellow fever broke out, a physician might be justified in treating it as he had been accustomed to treat those complaints which, on the whole, had the most symptoms in common with it.
But what should we think of a physician who should now tell us that he deduced his treatment of yellow fever from the general theory of pathology? Surely we should ask him, Whether, in constructing his theory of pathology, he had or had not taken into the account the facts which had been ascertained respecting the yellow fever? If he had, then it would be more correct to say that he had arrived at the principles of pathology partly by his experience of cases of yellow fever than that he had deduced his treatment of yellow fever from the principles of pathology. If he had not, he should not prescribe for us. If we had the yellow fever, we should prefer a man who had never treated any cases but cases of yellow fever to a man who had walked the hospitals of London and Paris for years, but who knew nothing of our particular disease.