is no legitimate way of substituting the rule of the general interest for the rule of the interest of individuals; and he rather harshly says, 'Cette substitution n'est qu'un mensonge.' . . . 'Elle est impossible, et la règle d'intérêt général est en conséquence un principe de l'égoïsme et n'en peut sortir.' This criticism appears to assume that the proposition which Bentham wishes to prove is, that if all men were, at a given moment, to begin to pursue each his own greatest happiness, the result would be the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This, of course, depends upon the state of things with which you begin. The greatest happiness of Abraham Lincoln at this moment would involve the destruction of Jefferson Davis; and in no state of things that the world has ever yet known were the happiness of each and the happiness of all proximately coincident.

Bentham certainly never makes any such assertion as that which Jouffroy appears to ascribe to him. His fundamental assumption is that the legislator whom he addresses wishes, for whatever reason, to promote the happiness of the people for whom he legislates. He asserts that, as a fact, every individual does seek his own happiness on all occasions, and the object of his book is to show how, upon this assumption, and with this datum, the result of a maximum of happiness is to be produced. If he had been asked why the legislator should care about the happiness of the people, he would no doubt have said that he will care for it according to the force which the physical,

VOL. III

the moral, and the religious sanctions exercise on his mind. Whether he cares for his object more or less, this is the way by which he must attain it. These assertions are perfectly simple. No one can misunderstand them, and it is universally admitted that Bentham argued as consistently as possible on his own principles, though his disciples, Austin and Mr. Mill-to whom, perhaps, Mr. Bain should be added—have enlarged and explained some of his principles in a valuable manner.

The real exception which M. Jouffroy has to take to them is, that Bentham did not hold the transcendental theory of duty. In this, as we have already observed, he may have been right or wrong, but it is hard measure to describe his dissent from a very disputable theory as 'metaphysical nullity.'

It is difficult to add anything to so dry a controversy as that into which the dispute between Jouffroy and Bentham thus finally resolves itself. There are, however, one or two collateral observations which are often neglected, and of which Jouffroy's writings remind us. He complains, in his criticism on Hobbes, that Hobbes attaches to the words 'right' and 'duty' meanings entirely different from those which men usually attach to them. The complaint shows a point of view, on the part of the critic, so entirely different from that of the author, as to raise a strong presumption against the justice of the criticism. Bentham, and others of his way of thinking, would say that such words as 'right,' 'duty,' 'law,' 'nature,' and

the like, are used in a more confused and indefinite manner than any others, and that the very first step towards any satisfactory kind of moral speculation is to reduce them to a definite meaning. These meanings must, of course, differ in different systems, and it is by those differences that the systems are distinguished from each other.

He

Jouffroy himself was not very happy in his use of words, or rather in his remarks upon them. says, for instance, 'Le bien, l'utile, le bonheur, trois idées que la raison ne tarde pas à tirer du spectacle de notre nature, et qui sont parfaitement distinctes dans toutes les langues.' In fact, 'Le bien' cannot be translated into English, and it is not even natural French. 'The good' or 'the well' is not sense. Adjectives and adverbs want substantives and verbs to complete them. The fact that transcendentalists of all ages and nations are obliged to distort their own language, before they can express what they assert to be the fundamental idea of all, is not unimportant. 'Happiness' is a substantive, which can be understood, but 'the highest good' is an expression which leaves a blank. The highest good what? The highest good health, the highest good fortune, are, at all events, good grammar, but the highest good, by itself, is not.

No doubt there will always be a class of people to whom Bentham's reputation in England will be a proof that we are a grovelling, low-minded race who cannot soar-who have, as a French critic said, hands

t

and feet, but no wings. A candid observer will put a different construction on the fact. The great recommendation of Bentham, and men like him, to Englishmen in general, even to those who care most for abstract inquiries, is that they do give the one great pledge of truth. They solve real problems, and, till somebody else can solve them better, their power will not be shaken in this country.

Jouffroy died before he came to the practical application of his transcendentalism, but the real objection to such theories is that they never stand the test of practice. Try, for instance, to regulate the law of marriage on transcendental principles. Does the transcendental moral law permit of divorce, or not, and in what cases? When transcendentalism is brought to bear upon such a subject, it always comes to a futile conclusion. It is written in my inmost heart, says one such theorist, that divorce is an iniquity. And it is written in mine, says another, that it is a primæval, natural, imprescriptible right of man. For undisputed points of morals you can always set up a transcendental authority. It is in uncertain cases that an authority is wanted, and then it is not to be had.

Bentham, on the other hand, may be right or wrong, but the world at large can always judge which it is. What was written in Kant's heart no one can tell, but whether Bentham estimated the consequences of the liberty of divorce rightly, is a question on which every one can judge for himself.

These practical questions are the only real tests of the value of theories. The falling of an apple is a very little thing, but before you can explain it you must know the arrangement of the solar system, and the most magnificent accounts of that system which fail to explain it, fail to do what is required of them.