[Footnote 2: "Every thing that I have heard or read of this sovereign has contributed to the impression on my mind, that he is a good and a wise man, and worthy to be the king of a virtuous people, the purest specimen of the Gothic race."—Church and State, p. 125. n.—ED.]
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When Leopold said that he was called to "reign over four millions of noble Belgians," I thought the phrase would have been more germane to the matter, if he had said that he was called to "rein in four million restive asses."
August 20. 1831.
GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE.——HOBBISM.
O. P. Q. in the Morning Chronicle is a clever fellow. He is for the greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number, and for the longest possible time! So am I; so are you, and every one of us, I will venture to say, round the tea-table. First, however, what does O. P. Q. mean by the word happiness? and, secondly, how does he propose to make other persons agree in his definition of the term? Don't you see the ridiculous absurdity of setting up that as a principle or motive of action, which is, in fact, a necessary and essential instinct of our very nature—an inborn and inextinguishable desire? How can creatures susceptible of pleasure and pain do otherwise than desire happiness? But, what happiness? That is the question. The American savage, in scalping his fallen enemy, pursues his happiness naturally and adequately. A Chickasaw, or Pawnee Bentham, or O. P. Q., would necessarily hope for the most frequent opportunities possible of scalping the greatest possible number of savages, for the longest possible time. There is no escaping this absurdity, unless you come back to a standard of reason and duty, imperative upon our merely pleasurable sensations. Oh! but, says O. P. Q., I am for the happiness of others! Of others! Are you, indeed? Well, I happen to be one of those others, and, so far as I can judge from what you show me of your habits and views, I would rather be excused from your banquet of happiness. Your mode of happiness would make me miserable. To go about doing as much good as possible to as many men as possible, is, indeed, an excellent object for a man to propose to himself; but then, in order that you may not sacrifice the real good and happiness of others to your particular views, which may be quite different from your neighbour's, you must do that good to others which the reason, common to all, pronounces to be good for all. In this sense your fine maxim is so very true as to be a mere truism.
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So you object, with old Hobbes, that I do good actions for the pleasure of a good conscience; and so, after all, I am only a refined sensualist! Heaven bless you, and mend your logic! Don't you see that if conscience, which is in its nature a consequence, were thus anticipated and made an antecedent—a party instead of a judge—it would dishonour your draft upon it—it would not pay on demand? Don't you see that, in truth, the very fact of acting with this motive properly and logically destroys all claim upon conscience to give you any pleasure at all?
August 22. 1831.