[17] If “the magnificent principle” is thus stated, “mankind ought to pursue their greatest happiness,” it must be borne in mind that there are persons whose interests are opposed to the greatest happiness of mankind. Lord Macaulay’s opponent replies, “ought is not predicable of such persons; for the word ought has no meaning unless it be used in reference to some interest.” Lord Macaulay replied, “that interest was synonymous with greatest happiness; and that, therefore, IF the word ought has no meaning unless used with reference to interest, then, to say that mankind ought to pursue their greatest happiness, is simply to say that the greatest happiness is the greatest happiness; that every individual pursues his own happiness; that either what he thinks his happiness must coincide with the greatest happiness of society or not; that if what he thinks his happiness coincides with the greatest happiness of society, he will attempt to promote the greatest happiness of society whether he ever heard of the “greatest happiness principle” or not; and that, by the admission of the Westminster Reviewer, IF his happiness is inconsistent with the greatest happiness of society, there is no reason why he should promote the greatest happiness of society. Now, that there are individuals who think that for their happiness which is not for the greatest happiness of society, is evident.... The question is not whether men have some motives for promoting the greatest happiness, but whether the stronger motives be those which impel them to promote the greatest happiness.“—Lord Macaulay’s “Miscellaneous Writings,” Utilitarian Theory of Government, pp. 177–9.
[18] It will be seen, later on, in what this view differs from Sir Henry Maine’s.
[19] In all the Diluvian commemorative festivals, to which I shall draw attention ([ch. xi.]), there is one day set apart for the commemoration of this primitive equality, accompanied with Bacchanalian festivities and ceremonials.
[20] Sir H. Maine (“Ancient Law,” p. 95) says, “Like all other deductions from the hypothesis of a law natural, and like the belief itself in a law of nature, it was languidly assented to, until it passed out of the possession of the lawyers into that of the literary men of the eighteenth century, and the public which sat at their feet. With them it became the most distinct tenet of their creed, and was even regarded as the summary of all the others.”
[21] “The earlier advocates of the doctrine of the social compact maintained it on the ground of its actual existence. They asserted that this account of the origin of political societies was historically true. Thus Locke, &c.”—Sir G. C. Lewis, “Meth. of Reasoning in Pol.” i. p. 429.
[22] “The only reliable materials which we possess, besides the Pentateuch, for the history of the period which it embraces, consist of some fragments of Berosus and Manetho, an epitome of the early Egyptian history of the latter, a certain number of Egyptian and Babylonian inscriptions, and two or three valuable papyri.”—Rawlinson, Bampton Lectures. Oxford, 1859, ii. 55.
[23] I indicated this view in a pamphlet, “Inviolability of Property by the State, by an English Landlord.” 1866.
[24] Again Esau and Jacob separated, after the death of the patriarch Isaac, because their stock in herds and flocks had so increased that, according to the scriptural phrase, “it was more than they might dwell together,” and further, “the land would not bear them because of their cattle.”—Gen. chap, xxxvi.; Vide “Pinkerton, Voy.” i. 528.
Writing with reference to the Hamitic dynasty, founded at Babylon by Nimrod (vide Rawlinson, Anc. Mon.), and the conquests of Kudur-Lagamer, identified by Rawlinson as Chedor-Laomer, Mr Brace adds (“Ethnology,” p. 28):—“This at a period, as Professor Rawlinson remarks, when the kings of Egypt had never ventured beyond their borders, and when no monarch in Asia held dominion over more than a few petty tribes and a few hundred miles of territory.”—Vide [ch. xiii.] “A Golden Age.”
[25] Such seems, at a comparatively recent period (1762), to have been the state of things at a widely different point among the Samoides:—“The real spot where the habitations of the Samoides begin,—if any case be pointed out among a people which is continually changing residence,—is in the district of Mozine, beyond the river of that name, three or four hundred wersts from Archangel. The colony, which is actually met with there, and which lives dispersed according to the usage of those people, each family by itself, without forming villages and communities, does not consist of more than three hundred families, or thereabouts, which are all descended from two different tribes, the one called Laghe and the other Wanonte—distinctions carefully regarded by them.”—Vide “Pinkerton, Voy.” i. 524. It is also said (p. 582) of certain moral observances amongst them (vide infra, [p. 155]):—“All these customs, religiously observed among them, are no other than the fruits of tradition, handed down to them from their ancestors; and this tradition, with some reason, may be looked upon as law.” It is a common idea amongst us that the word home is a peculiarly English word, and, I confess, it was my own impression, but I am set musing by finding among these same Samoides the word “chome” as their word for their tents, to which they cling so closely.—Vide Pinkerton, i. 63.