hands of M. Dumont a large collection of manuscripts, containing the greater part of the reasonings and observations which he proposed to embody into his projected system. These materials, M. Dumont assures us, though neither arranged nor completed, were rather redundant than defective in quantity; and left nothing to the redacteur, but the occasional labour of selection, arrangement, and compression. This task he has performed, as to a considerable part of the papers entrusted to him, in the work now before us; and has certainly given a very fair specimen, both of the merit of the original speculations, and of his own powers of expression and distribution. There are some passages, perhaps, into which a degree of levity has been introduced that does not harmonise with the general tone of the composition; and others in which we miss something of that richness of illustration and homely vigour of reasoning which delighted us in Mr. Bentham's original publications; but, in point of neatnesss and perspicuity, conciseness and precision, we have no sort of doubt that M. Dumont has been of the most essential service to his principal; and are inclined to suspect that, without this assistance, we should never have been able to give any account of his labours.*

The principle upon which the whole of Mr. Bentham's system depends is, that Utility, and utility alone, is the criterion of right and wrong, and ought to be the sole object of the legislator. This principle, he admits, has often been suggested, and is familiarly recurred to both in action and deliberation; but he maintains that it has never been followed out with sufficient steadiness and resolution, and that the necessity of assuming it as the exclusive test of our proceedings has never been sufficiently understood. There are two principles, he alleges, that have been admitted to a share of that moral authority which belongs of right to utility alone, and have exercised a control over the conduct and opinions

* A considerable portion of the original paper is here omitted; and those parts only retained which relate to the general principle and scope of the system.

SOLE SUPREMACY OF UTILITY.

575

of society, by which legislators have been very frequently misled. One of these he denominates the Ascetic principle, or that which enjoins the mortification of the senses as a duty, and proscribes their gratification as a sin; and the other, which has had a much more extensive influence he calls the principle of Sympathy or Antipathy; under which name he comprehends all those systems which place the basis of morality in the indications of a moral Sense, or in the maxims of a rule of Right; or which, under any other form of expression, decide upon the propriety of human actions by any reference to internal feelings, and not solely on a consideration of their consequences.

As utility is thus assumed as the test and standard of action and approbation, and as it consists in procuring pleasure and avoiding pain, Mr. Bentham has thought it necessary, in this place, to introduce a catalogue of all the pleasures and pains of which he conceives man to be susceptible; since these, he alleges, are the elements of that moral calculation in which the wisdom and the duty of legislators and individuals must ultimately be found to consist. The simple pleasures of which man is susceptible are fourteen, it seems, in number; and are thus enumerated-1. pleasures of sense: 2. of wealth: 3. of dexterity: 4. of good character: 5. of friendship: 6. of power: 7. of piety: 8. of benevolence: 9. of malevolence: 10. of memory, 11. of imagination: 12. of hope: 13. of association: 14. of relief from pain. The The pains, our readers will be happy to learn, are only eleven; and are almost exactly the counterpart of the pleasures that have now been enumerated. The construction of these catalogues, M. Dumont, considers as by far the greatest improvement that has yet been made in the philosophy of human nature!

It is chiefly by the fear of pain that men are regulated in the choice of their deliberate actions; and Mr. Bentham finds that pain may be attached to particular actions in four different ways: 1. by nature: 2. by public opinion: 3. by positive enactment: and 4. by the doctrines of religion. Our institutions will be perfect

576

ASSUMED VIRTUES OF ENUMERATION.

when all these different sanctions are in harmony with each other.

But the most difficult part of our author's task remains. In order to make any use of those "elements of moral arithmetic," which are constituted by the lists of our pleasures and pains, it was evidently necessary to ascertain their relative Value, to enable him to proceed in his legislative calculations with any degree of assurance. Under this head, however, we are only told that the value of a pleasure or a pain, considered in itself, depends, 1. upon its intensity, 2. upon its proximity, 3. upon its duration, and 4. upon its certainty; and that, considered with a view to its consequences, its value is further affected, 1. by its fecundity, i. e. its tendency to produce other pleasures or pains; 2. by its purity, i. e. its being unmixed with other sensations; and 3. by the number of persons to whom it may extend. These considerations, however, the author justly admits to be still inadequate for his purpose; for, by what means is the Intensity of any pain or pleasure to be measured, and how, without a knowledge of this, are we to proportion punishments to temptations, or adjust the measures of recompense or indemnification? To solve this problem, Mr. Bentham seems to have thought it sufficient to recur to his favourite system of Enumeration; and to have held nothing else necessary than to make out a fair catalogue of "the circumstances by which the sensibility is affected." These he divides into two branches—the primary and the secondary. The first he determines to be exactly fifteen, viz. temperament-health-strength — bodily imperfection-intelligence-strength of understanding fortitude - perseverance dispositions notions of honour-notions of religion-sympathies antipathies folly or derangement-fortune. The secondary are only nine, viz. sex-age-rank - education-profession-climate-creed-government-religious creed. By carefully attending to these twentyfour circumstances, Mr. Bentham is of opinion that we may be able to estimate the value of any particular pleasure or pain to an individual, with sufficient exactness;

THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY.

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and to judge of the comparative magnitude of crimes, and of the proportionate amount of pains and compen

sations.

Now the first remark that suggests itself is, that if there is little that is false or pernicious in this system, there is little that is either new or important. That laws were made to promote the general welfare of society, and that nothing should be enacted which has a different tendency, are truths that can scarcely claim the merit of novelty, or mark an epoch by the date of their promulgation; and we have not yet been able to discover that the vast technical apparatus here provided by Mr. Bentham can be of the smallest service in improving their practical application.

The basis of the whole system is the undivided sovereignty of the principle of Utility, and the necessity which there is for recurring strictly to it in every question of legislation. Moral feelings, it is admitted, will frequently be found to coincide with it; but they are on no account to be trusted to, till this coincidence has been verified. They are no better, in short, than sympathies and antipathies, mere private and unaccountable feelings, that may vary in the case of every individual; and therefore can afford no fixed standard for general approbation or enjoyment. Now we cannot help thinking, that this fundamental proposition is very defective, both in logical consistency, and in substantial truth. In the first place, it seems very obvious that the principle of utility is liable to the very same objections, on the force of which the authority of moral impressions has been so positively denied. For how shall utility itself be recognised, but by a feeling exactly similar to that which is stigmatised as capricious and unaccountable? How are pleasures and pains, and the degrees and relative magnitude of pleasures and pains, to be distinguished, but by the feeling and experience of every individual? And what greater certainty can there be in the accuracy of such determinations, than in the results of other feelings no less general and distinguishable? If right and wrong, in short, be not precisely the same to every individual,

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BENTHAM'S UTILITY ILL-FOUNDED.

neither are pleasure and pain; and if there be despotism and absurdity in imposing upon another one's own impressions of wisdom and propriety, it cannot be just and reasonable to erect a standard of enjoyment, and a consequent rule of conduct, upon the narrow basis of our own measure of sensibility. It is evident, therefore, that by assuming the principle of utility, we do not get rid of the risk of variable feeling; and that we are still liable to all the uncertainty that may be produced by this cause, under the influence of any other principle.

The truth is, however, that this uncertainty is in all cases of a very limited nature; and that the common impressions of morality, the vulgar distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice, are perfectly sufficient to direct the conduct of the individual, and the judgment of the legislator, for all useful purposes, without any reference to the nature or origin of those distinctions. In many respects, indeed, we conceive them to be much fitter for this purpose than Mr. Bentham's oracles of utility. In the first place, it is necessary to observe, that it is a very gross and unpardonable mistake to represent the notions of right and wrong, which are here in ques tion, as depending altogether upon the private and capricious feelings of an individual. Certainly no man was ever so arrogant or so foolish, as to insist upon establishing his own individual persuasion as an infallible test of duty and wisdom for all the rest of the world. The moral feelings, of which Mr. Bentham would make so small account, are the feelings which observation has taught us to impute to all men; those in which, under every variety of circumstances, they are found pretty constantly to agree, and as to which the uniformity their conclusions may be reasoned and reckoned upon. with almost as much security as in the case of their ex ternal perceptions. The existence of such feelings, and the uniformity with which they are excited in all men on the same occasions, are facts, in short, that admit of no dispute; and, in point of certainty and precision, are exactly on a footing with those perceptions of utility that can only be relied on after they also have been

of