[7] This article, and perhaps four or five others on miscellaneous subjects, written within a few weeks of the above date, were my only contributions to the Tablet, at that time owned and edited by my friend Mr J. E. Wallis, who, during some ten or twelve eventful years, continued to uphold the standard of Tradition, with singular ability and at great personal sacrifice.
[8] “All that Bentham wrote on this subject (“International Law”) is comprised within a comparatively small compass (Works, vol. ii. 535–560, iii. 200–611, ix. 58–382). But it would be unpardonable to omit all mention of a science which he was the means of revolutionising, and which, previously to his taking it in hand, had not even received a proper distinctive name.”—John Hill Burton, “Benthamiana,” p. 396. From Bentham’s point of view, “International Law” is the proper distinctive name.
[9] Montalembert, Correspondant, Aout, 1861.
[10] C’est une des plus admirables choses de ce monde que jamais nul empire, et nul succès n’ont pu s’assujetir l’histoire et en imposer par elle à la posterité. Des generations de rois issus du même sang se sont succédé pendant dix siècles au gouvernement du même peuple, et malgré cette perpetuité d’intérêt et de commandement, ils n’ont pu couvrir aux yeux du monde les fautes de leurs pères et maintenir sur leur tombe le faux éclat de leur vie.—Lacordaire: vid. Correspondant, Nov. 1856.
[11] Vide “Sentiment de Napoleon I. sur Le Christianisme,” d’apres des temoignages recueillis par feu le Chevalier de Beauterne. Nouvelle edition, par M. ——; Bray, Paris, 1860.
[12] Neue Freie Presse of Vienna. Pall Mall Gazette, May 4, 1871.
[13] “Utiles esse autem opiniones has quis neget, quum intelligat quam multa firmentur jure jurando, quantæ salutis sint fœderum religiones? quam multos divini supplicii metus a scelere revocaverit? quamque sancta sit societas civium inter ipsos diis immortalibus interpositis tum judicibus tum testibus?”—Cicero, De Legibus, ii. 7.
[14] “From utility, then, we may denominate a principle that may serve to preside over and govern, as it were, such arrangements as shall be made of the several institutions, or combinations of institutions, that compose the matter of this science.” Bentham’s “Fragment on Government,” xliii., and at p. 45, the principle of utility is declared “all-sufficient,” ... that “principle which furnishes us with that reason, which alone depends not upon any higher reason, but which is itself the sole and all-sufficient reason for every point of practice whatsoever.”
[15] Bentham speaks of his enunciation of “the greatest happiness principle” in the following terms:—“Throughout the whole horizon of morals and of politics, the consequences were glorious and vast. It might be said without danger of exaggeration, that they who sat in darkness had seen a great light.” With reference to this Lord Macaulay says, “We blamed the utilitarians for claiming the credit of a discovery, when they had merely stolen that morality (the morality of the gospel) and spoiled it in the stealing. They have taken the precept of Christ and left the motive, and they demand the praise of a most wonderful and beneficial invention, when all they have done has been to make a most useful maxim useless by separating it from its sanction. On religious principles it is true that every individual will best promote his own happiness by promoting the happiness of others. But if religious considerations be left out of the question it is not true. If we do not reason on the supposition of a future state, where is the motive? If we do reason on that supposition, where is the discovery?”—Vide Lord Macaulay’s Essays on “Westminster Reviewer’s Defence of Mill,” and “The Utilitarian Theory of Government” in Lord Macaulay’s “Miscellaneous Writings.”
[16] There was a way in which the argument was formerly stated by utilitarians which was much more plausible, but which I observe is now seldom if ever resorted to by the modern exponents of this theory. The Pall Mall Gazette, April 12, 1871, says: “The now prevailing doctrine” that there is no absolute standard of right and wrong, but “that the right and wrong of an action or a motive depend upon the influence of the action, or the motive upon the general good.” The argument to which I refer is thus stated by Mr W. O. Manning in his “Commentaries on the Law of Nations,” 1839:—“Everything around us proves that God designed the happiness of His creatures. It is the will of God that man should be happy. To ascertain the will of God regarding any action, we have, therefore, to consider the tendency of that action to promote or diminish human happiness,” p. 59. It is perfectly true that man was created by God for happiness, and that ultimate happiness, if he does not forfeit it, is the end to which he is still destined. It is moreover true that even in this world he may enjoy a conditional and comparative happiness. How it is that this happiness cannot be complete and perfect here below is precisely the secret which tradition reveals to him. It is important, from the point of view of happiness, both for individuals and nations, that the truth of this revelation should be ascertained, and that the conditions and limitations within which happiness is possible should be known, otherwise life will be consumed in chimerical pursuits of the unattainable, and in the case of nations will be certain to end, at some time or another, in catastrophes such as we have recently witnessed in Paris. In an enlarged sense it is therefore true to say that the divine will has regard to utility; but the view has this implied condition, that what we regard as utility should in the first place be conformable to what is directly or indirectly known to be the divine precept and command; and, on the other hand, if no advertence is made to revelation or the tradition of the human race, what is called utility, however large and disinterested the speculation may be, it can never be more than the view of an individual or of a section of mankind, which it is highly probable that other individuals and sections of mankind, looking at the same facts, from a different point of view, will see reason to contradict.