



Produced by Thierry Alberto, Paul Dring, Henry Craig and
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THE ENGLISH UTILITARIANS

_By_

LESLIE STEPHEN


[Illustration]


LONDON

_DUCKWORTH and CO._

3 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.

1900




PREFACE


This book is a sequel to my _History of English Thought in the
Eighteenth Century_. The title which I then ventured to use was more
comprehensive than the work itself deserved: I felt my inability to
write a continuation which should at all correspond to a similar title
for the nineteenth century. I thought, however, that by writing an
account of the compact and energetic school of English Utilitarians I
could throw some light both upon them and their contemporaries. I had
the advantage for this purpose of having been myself a disciple of the
school during its last period. Many accidents have delayed my completion
of the task; and delayed also its publication after it was written. Two
books have been published since that time, which partly cover the same
ground; and I must be content with referring my readers to them for
further information. They are _The English Radicals_, by Mr. C. B.
Roylance Kent; and _English Political Philosophy from Hobbes to Maine_,
by Professor Graham.




CONTENTS


                                     PAGE
  INTRODUCTORY                          1


  CHAPTER I

  POLITICAL CONDITIONS

    I. The British Constitution        12

   II. The Ruling Class                18

  III. Legislation and Administration  22

   IV. The Army and Navy               30

    V. The Church                      35

   VI. The Universities                43

  VII. Theory                          51


  CHAPTER II

  THE INDUSTRIAL SPIRIT

    I. The Manufacturers               57

   II. The Agriculturists              69


  CHAPTER III

  SOCIAL PROBLEMS

    I. Pauperism                       87

   II. The Police                      99

  III. Education                      108

   IV. The Slave-Trade                113

    V. The French Revolution          121

   VI. Individualism                  130


  CHAPTER IV

  PHILOSOPHY

    I. John Horne Tooke               137

   II. Dugald Stewart                 142


  CHAPTER V

  BENTHAM'S LIFE

    I. Early Life                     169

   II. First Writings                 175

  III. The Panopticon                 193

   IV. Utilitarian Propaganda         206

    V. Codification                   222


  CHAPTER VI

  BENTHAM'S DOCTRINE

    I. First Principles               235

   II. Springs of Action              249

  III. The Sanctions                  255

   IV. Criminal Law                   263

    V. English Law                    271

   VI. Radicalism                     282

  VII. Individualism                  307


  NOTE ON BENTHAM'S WRITINGS          319




INTRODUCTORY


The English Utilitarians of whom I am about to give some account were a
group of men who for three generations had a conspicuous influence upon
English thought and political action. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and
John Stuart Mill were successively their leaders; and I shall speak of
each in turn. It may be well to premise a brief indication of the method
which I have adopted. I have devoted a much greater proportion of my
work to biography and to consideration of political and social
conditions than would be appropriate to the history of a philosophy. The
reasons for such a course are very obvious in this case, inasmuch as the
Utilitarian doctrines were worked out with a constant reference to
practical applications. I think, indeed, that such a reference is often
equally present, though not equally conspicuous, in other philosophical
schools. But in any case I wish to show how I conceive the relation of
my scheme to the scheme more generally adopted by historians of abstract
speculation.

I am primarily concerned with the history of a school or sect, not with
the history of the arguments by which it justifies itself in the court
of pure reason. I must therefore consider the creed as it was actually
embodied in the dominant beliefs of the adherents of the school, not as
it was expounded in lecture-rooms or treatises on first principles. I
deal not with philosophers meditating upon Being and not-Being, but with
men actively engaged in framing political platforms and carrying on
popular agitations. The great majority even of intelligent partisans are
either indifferent to the philosophic creed of their leaders or take it
for granted. Its postulates are more or less implied in the doctrines
which guide them in practice, but are not explicitly stated or
deliberately reasoned out. Not the less the doctrines of a sect,
political or religious, may be dependent upon theories which for the
greater number remain latent or are recognised only in their concrete
application. Contemporary members of any society, however widely they
differ as to results, are employed upon the same problems and, to some
extent, use the same methods and make the same assumptions in attempting
solutions. There is a certain unity even in the general thought of any
given period. Contradictory views imply some common ground. But within
this wider unity we find a variety of sects, each of which may be
considered as more or less representing a particular method of treating
the general problem: and therefore principles which, whether clearly
recognised or not, are virtually implied in their party creed and give a
certain unity to their teaching.

One obvious principle of unity, or tacit bond of sympathy which holds a
sect together depends upon the intellectual idiosyncrasy of the
individuals. Coleridge was aiming at an important truth when he said
that every man was born an Aristotelian or a Platonist.[1] Nominalists
and realists, intuitionists and empiricists, idealists and materialists,
represent different forms of a fundamental antithesis which appears to
run through all philosophy. Each thinker is apt to take the postulates
congenial to his own mind as the plain dictates of reason. Controversies
between such opposites appear to be hopeless. They have been aptly
compared by Dr. Venn to the erection of a snow-bank to dam a river. The
snow melts and swells the torrent which it was intended to arrest. Each
side reads admitted truths into its own dialect, and infers that its own
dialect affords the only valid expression. To regard such antitheses as
final and insoluble would be to admit complete scepticism. What is true
for one man would not therefore be true--or at least its truth would not
be demonstrable--to another. We must trust that reconciliation is
achievable by showing that the difference is really less vital and
corresponds to a difference of methods or of the spheres within which
each mode of thought may be valid. To obtain the point of view from
which such a conciliation is possible should be, I hold, one main end of
modern philosophising.

The effect of this profound intellectual difference is complicated by
other obvious influences. There is, in the first place, the difference
of intellectual horizon. Each man has a world of his own and sees a
different set of facts. Whether his horizon is that which is visible
from his parish steeple or from St. Peter's at Rome, it is still
strictly limited: and the outside universe, known vaguely and
indirectly, does not affect him like the facts actually present to his
perception. The most candid thinkers will come to different conclusions
when they are really provided with different sets of fact. In political
and social problems every man's opinions are moulded by his social
station. The artisan's view of the capitalist, and the capitalist's view
of the artisan, are both imperfect, because each has a first-hand
knowledge of his own class alone: and, however anxious to be fair, each
will take a very different view of the working of political
institutions. An apparent concord often covers the widest divergence
under the veil of a common formula, because each man has his private
mode of interpreting general phrases in terms of concrete fact.

This, of course, implies the further difference arising from the
passions which, however illogically, go so far to determine opinions.
Here we have the most general source of difficulty in considering the
actual history of a creed. We cannot limit ourselves to the purely
logical factor. All thought has to start from postulates. Men have to
act before they think: before, at any rate, reasoning becomes distinct
from imagining or guessing. To explain in early periods is to fancy and
to take a fancy for a perception. The world of the primitive man is
constructed not only from vague conjectures and hasty analogies but from
his hopes and fears, and bears the impress of his emotional nature. When
progress takes place some of his beliefs are confirmed, some disappear,
and others are transformed: and the whole history of thought is a
history of this gradual process of verification. We begin, it is said,
by assuming: we proceed by verifying, and we only end by demonstrating.
The process is comparatively simple in that part of knowledge which
ultimately corresponds to the physical sciences. There must be a certain
harmony between beliefs and realities in regard to knowledge of ordinary
matters of fact, if only because such harmony is essential to the life
of the race. Even an ape must distinguish poisonous from wholesome food.
Beliefs as to physical facts require to be made articulate and distinct;
but we have only to recognise as logical principles the laws of nature
which we have unconsciously obeyed and illustrated--to formulate
dynamics long after we have applied the science in throwing stones or
using bows and arrows. But what corresponds to this in the case of the
moral and religious beliefs? What is the process of verification? Men
practically are satisfied with their creed so long as they are satisfied
with the corresponding social order. The test of truth so suggested is
obviously inadequate: for all great religions, however contradictory to
each other, have been able to satisfy it for long periods. Particular
doctrines might be tested by experiment. The efficacy of witchcraft
might be investigated like the efficacy of vaccination. But faith can
always make as many miracles as it wants: and errors which originate in
the fancy cannot be at once extirpated by the reason. Their form may be
changed but not their substance. To remove them requires not disproof of
this or that fact, but an intellectual discipline which is rare even
among the educated classes. A religious creed survives, as poetry or art
survives,--not so long as it contains apparently true statements of fact
but--so long as it is congenial to the whole social state. A philosophy
indeed is a poetry stated in terms of logic. Considering the natural
conservatism of mankind, the difficulty is to account for progress, not
for the persistence of error. When the existing order ceases to be
satisfactory; when conquest or commerce has welded nations together and
brought conflicting creeds into cohesion; when industrial development
has modified the old class relations; or when the governing classes have
ceased to discharge their functions, new principles are demanded and new
prophets arise. The philosopher may then become the mouthpiece of the
new order, and innocently take himself to be its originator. His
doctrines were fruitless so long as the soil was not prepared for the
seed. A premature discovery if not stamped out by fire and sword is
stifled by indifference. If Francis Bacon succeeded where Roger Bacon
failed, the difference was due to the social conditions, not to the men.
The cause of the great religious as well as of the great political
revolutions must be sought mainly in the social history. New creeds
spread when they satisfy the instincts or the passions roused to
activity by other causes. The system has to be so far true as to be
credible at the time; but its vitality depends upon its congeniality as
a whole to the aspirations of the mass of mankind.

The purely intellectual movement no doubt represents the decisive
factor. The love of truth in the abstract is probably the weakest of
human passions; but truth when attained ultimately gives the fulcrum for
a reconstruction of the world. When a solid core of ascertained and
verifiable truth has once been formed and applied to practical results
it becomes the fixed pivot upon which all beliefs must ultimately turn.
The influence, however, is often obscure and still indirect. The more
cultivated recognise the necessity of bringing their whole doctrine into
conformity with the definitely organised and established system; and, at
the present day, even the uneducated begin to have an inkling of
possible results. Yet the desire for logical consistency is not one
which presses forcibly upon the less cultivated intellects. They do not
feel the necessity of unifying knowledge or bringing their various
opinions into consistency and into harmony with facts. There are easy
methods of avoiding any troublesome conflict of belief. The philosopher
is ready to show them the way. He, like other people, has to start from
postulates, and to see how they will work. When he meets with a
difficulty it is perfectly legitimate that he should try how far the old
formula can be applied to cover the new applications. He may be led to a
process of 'rationalising' or'spiritualising' which is dangerous to
intellectual honesty. The vagueness of the general conceptions with
which he is concerned facilitates the adaptation; and his words slide
into new meanings by imperceptible gradations. His error is in taking a
legitimate tentative process for a conclusive test; and inferring that
opinions are confirmed because a non-natural interpretation can be
forced upon them. This, however, is only the vicious application of the
normal process through which new ideas are diffused or slowly infiltrate
the old systems till the necessity of a thoroughgoing reconstruction
forces itself upon our attention. Nor can it be denied that an opposite
fallacy is equally possible, especially in times of revolutionary
passion. The apparent irreconcilability of some new doctrine with the
old may lead to the summary rejection of the implicit truth, together
with the error involved in its imperfect recognition. Hence arises the
necessity for faking into account not only a man's intellectual
idiosyncrasies and the special intellectual horizon, but all the
prepossessions due to his personal character, his social environment,
and his consequent sympathies and antipathies. The philosopher has his
passions like other men. He does not really live in the thin air of
abstract speculation. On the contrary, he starts generally, and surely
is right in starting, with keen interest in the great religious,
ethical, and social problems of the time. He wishes--honestly and
eagerly--to try them by the severest tests, and to hold fast only what
is clearly valid. The desire to apply his principles in fact justifies
his pursuit, and redeems him from the charge that he is delighting in
barren intellectual subtleties. But to an outsider his procedure may
appear in a different light. His real problem comes to be: how the
conclusions which are agreeable to his emotions can be connected with
the postulates which are congenial to his intellect? He may be
absolutely honest and quite unconscious that his conclusions were
prearranged by his sympathies. No philosophic creed of any importance
has ever been constructed, we may well believe, without such sincerity
and without such plausibility as results from its correspondence to at
least some aspects of the truth. But the result is sufficiently shown by
the perplexed controversies which arise. Men agree in their conclusions,
though starting from opposite premises; or from the same premises reach
the most diverging conclusions. The same code of practical morality, it
is often said, is accepted by thinkers who deny each other's first
principles; dogmatism often appears to its opponents to be thoroughgoing
scepticism in disguise, and men establish victoriously results which
turn out in the end to be really a stronghold for their antagonists.

Hence there is a distinction between such a history of a sect as I
contemplate and a history of scientific inquiry or of pure philosophy. A
history of mathematical or physical science would differ from a direct
exposition of the science, but only in so far as it would state truths
in the order of discovery, not in the order most convenient for
displaying them as a system. It would show what were the processes by
which they were originally found out, and how they have been afterwards
annexed or absorbed in some wider generalisation. These facts might be
stated without any reference to the history of the discoverers or of the
society to which they belonged. They would indeed suggest very
interesting topics to the general historian or'sociologist.' He might
be led to inquire under what conditions men came to inquire
scientifically at all; why they ceased for centuries to care for
science; why they took up special departments of investigation; and what
was the effect of scientific discoveries upon social relations in
general. But the two inquiries would be distinct for obvious reasons. If
men study mathematics they can only come to one conclusion. They will
find out the same propositions of geometry if they only think clearly
enough and long enough, as certainly as Columbus would discover America
if he only sailed far enough. America was there, and so in a sense are
the propositions. We may therefore in this case entirely separate the
two questions: what leads men to think? and what conclusions will they
reach? The reasons which guided the first discoverers are just as valid
now, though they can be more systematically stated. But in the'moral
sciences' this distinction is not equally possible. The intellectual and
the social evolution are closely and intricately connected, and each
reacts upon the other. In the last resort no doubt a definitive system
of belief once elaborated would repose upon universally valid truths
and determine, instead of being determined by, the corresponding social
order. But in the concrete evolution which, we may hope, is
approximating towards this result, the creeds current among mankind have
been determined by the social conditions as well as helped to determine
them. To give an account of that process it is necessary to specify the
various circumstances which may lead to the survival of error, and to
the partial views of truth taken by men of different idiosyncrasies
working upon different data and moved by different passions and
prepossessions. A history written upon these terms would show primarily
what, as a fact, were the dominant beliefs during a given period, and
state