Historical Characters: Mackintosh, Talleyrand, Canning, Cobbett, Peel

by Baron Henry Lytton Bulwer Dalling and Bulwer

He considers with the disciples of Helvetius—1, that our ideas do come from our sensations, and that consequently we are selfish; 2, that man in doing what is most useful to himself does what is right.

Very strange and fantastical notions have been propagated against the philosopher by persons so egregiously mistaking him as to imagine that what he thus says of mankind generally—of man, meaning every man—is said of a man, of man separately; so that a murderer, pretend these commentators, has only to be sure that a second murder is useful to him by preventing the detection of the first, in order to be justified in committing it. It were useless to dwell upon this ridiculous construction. But in urging men to pursue the general interest of society at large, in telling them that to do what is most for that interest is to act usefully and thereby virtuously, Mr. Bentham found it necessary to explain how such interest was to be discovered.

Accordingly he has propounded that the general interest of a society must be considered to be the interest of the greatest number in that society, and that the greatest number in any society is the best judge of its interest. Moreover, in the further development of his doctrine, he contends that a majority would always, under natural circumstances, govern a minority, and that, therefore, there is a natural tendency, if not thwarted, towards the happiness and good government of mankind. This system of philosophy gained the more attention from its being also a system of politics. According to Mr. Bentham, that which was most important to men depended on maintaining what he considered the natural law, viz., governing the minority by the majority.

VIII.

Unfortunately for the destiny of mankind, and the soundness of the Benthamite doctrine, it is by no means certain that the majority in any community is the best judge of its interests; whilst it is even less certain, if it did know these interests, that it would necessarily and invariably follow them. In almost every collection of men the intelligent few know better what is for the common interest than the ignorant many; and it is rare indeed to see communities or individuals pursuing their interest steadily even when they perceive it clearly. It would, perhaps, be more reconcilable to reason to say that the intellect of a community should govern a community; but this assertion is also open to objection, since a small number of intelligent men might govern for their own interest, and not for the interest of the society they represented. In short, though it is easy to see that the science of government does not consist in giving power to the greatest number, but in giving it to the most intelligent, and making it for their interest to govern for the interest of the greatest number; still, every day teaches us that good government is rather a thing relative than a thing absolute; that all governments have good mixed with evil, and evil mixed with good; and that the statesman’s task, as is beautifully demonstrated by Montesquieu, is, not to destroy an evil combined with a greater good, nor to create a good accompanied with a greater evil; but to calculate how the greatest amount of good and the least amount of evil can be combined together. Hence it is, that the best governments with which we are acquainted seem rather to have been fashioned by the working hand of daily experience, than by the artistic fingers of philosophical speculation.

Nevertheless, the theory, that the good of the greatest number in any community ought to be the object which its government should strive to attain, and the maxim, that the interest and happiness of every unit in a community are to be treated as a portion of the interest and happiness of the whole community, are humanizing precepts, and have, through the influence of Mr. Bentham and of his disciples, produced, within my own memory, a considerable change in the public opinion of England.

Mr. Bentham’s name, then, is far more above the scoff of his antagonists than below the enthusiasm of his disciples; and it is in this spirit, and with a becoming respect, that Sir James Mackintosh treats the philosopher while he combats his philosophy.

IX.

In regard to the theory of Sir James himself, if I understand it rightly (and it is rather, as I have said, indistinctly expressed), he accepts neither the doctrine of innate ideas disinterestedly producing or ordering our actions, nor that of sense-derived ideas by which, with a concentrated regard to self, some suppose men to be governed—but imagines an association of ideas, naturally suggested by our human condition, which, according to a pre-ordinated state of the mind, produces, as in chemical processes, some emotion different from any of the combined elements or causes from which it springs.

This emotion, once existing, requires, without consideration or reflection, its gratification. In this manner the satisfaction of benevolence and pity springs as much from a spontaneous desire as the satisfaction of hunger; and man is unconsciously taught, through feelings necessary to him as man, to wish involuntarily for that which, on reflection and experience, he would find (such is the beautiful dispensation of Providence) most for his happiness and advantage.