The English Utilitarians Volume I Part 12

During the eighteenth century Benthamism had gone through its period of incubation. It was now to become an active agency, to gather proselytes, and to have a marked influence not only upon legislative but upon political movements. The immediate effect upon Bentham of the decline of the Panopticon, and his consequent emanc.i.p.ation from immediately practical work, was apparently his return to his more legitimate employment of speculative labour. He sent to Dumont at St.

Petersburg[297] part of the treatise upon Political Economy, which had been naturally suggested by his later work: and he applied himself to the Scottish judiciary question, to which many of his speculations had a close application. He published a work upon this subject in 1808. To the period between 1802 and 1812 belongs also the book, or rather the collection of papers, afterwards transformed into the book, upon Evidence, which is one of his most valuable performances.

A letter, dated 1st November 1810, gives a characteristic account of his position. He refers to hopes of the acceptance of some of his principles in South America. In Spain Spaniards are prepared to receive his laws 'as oracles.' 'Now at length, when I am just ready to drop into the grave' (he had still twenty years of energetic work before him), 'my fame has spread itself all over the civilised world.' Dumont's publication of 1802 is considered to have superseded all previous writings on legislation. In Germany and France codes have been prepared by authorised lawyers, who have 'sought to do themselves credit by references to that work.'[298] It has been translated into Russian. Even in England he is often mentioned in books and in parliament. 'Meantime I am here scribbling on in my hermitage, never seeing anybody but for some special reason, always bearing relation to the service of mankind.'[299]

Making all due allowance for the deceptive views of the outer world which haunt every 'hermitage,' it remains true that Bentham's fame was emerging from obscurity.

The end of this period, moreover, was bringing him into closer contact with English political life. Bentham, as we have seen, rejected the whole Jacobin doctrine of abstract rights. So long as English politics meant either the acceptance of a theory which, for whatever reason, gathered round it no solid body of support, or, on the other hand, the acceptance of an obstructive and purely conservative principle, to which all reform was radically opposed, Bentham was necessarily in an isolated position. He had 'nothing particular to say' to Fox. He was neither a Tory nor a Jacobin, and cared little for the paralysed Whigs. He allied himself therefore, so far as he was allied with any one, with the philanthropic agitators who stood, like him, outside the lines of party.

The improvement of prisons was not a party question. A marked change--not always, I think, sufficiently emphasised by historians--had followed the second war. The party-divisions began to take the form which was to become more marked as time went on. The old issues between Jacobin and Anti-Jacobin no longer existed. Napoleon had become the heir of the revolution. The great struggle was beginning in which England commanded the ocean, while the Continent was at the feet of the empire.

For a time the question was whether England, too, should be invaded.

After Trafalgar invasion became hopeless. The Napoleonic victories threatened to exclude English trade from the Continent: while England retorted by declaring that the Continent should trade with n.o.body else.

Upon one side the war was now appealing to higher feelings. It was no longer a crusade against theories, but a struggle for national existence and for the existence of other nations threatened by a gigantic despotism. Men like Wordsworth and Coleridge, who could not be Anti-Jacobins, had been first shocked by the Jacobin treatment of Switzerland, and now threw themselves enthusiastically into the cause which meant the rescue of Spain and Germany from foreign oppression. The generous feeling which had resented the attempt to forbid Frenchmen to break their own bonds, now resented the attempts of Frenchmen to impose bonds upon others. The patriotism which prompted to a crusade had seemed unworthy, but the patriotism which was now allied with the patriotism of Spain and Germany involved no sacrifice of other sentiment. Many men had sympathised with the early revolution, not so much from any strong sentiment of evils at home as from a belief that the French movement was but a fuller development of the very principles which were partially embodied in the British Const.i.tution. They had no longer to choose between sympathising with the enemies of England and sympathising with the suppressors of the old English liberties.

But, on the other hand, an opposite change took place. The disappearance of the Jacobin movement allowed the Radicalism of home growth to display itself more fully. English Whigs of all shades had opposed the war with certain misgivings. They had been nervously anxious not to identify themselves with the sentiments of the Jacobins. They desired peace with the French, but had to protest that it was not for love of French principles. That difficulty was removed. There was no longer a vision--such as Gillray had embodied in his caricatures--of a guillotine in St. James's Street: or of a Committee of Public Safety formed by Fox, Paine, and Horne Tooke. Meanwhile Whig prophecies of the failure of the war were not disproved by its results. Though the English navy had been victorious, English interference on the Continent had been futile. Millions of money had been wasted: and millions were flowing freely. Even now we stand astonished at the reckless profusion of the financiers of the time. And what was there to show for it? The French empire, so far from being destroyed, had been consolidated. If we escaped for the time, could we permanently resist the whole power of Europe? When the Peninsular War began we had been fighting, except for the short truce of Amiens, for sixteen years; and there seemed no reason to believe that the expedition to Portugal in 1808 would succeed better than previous efforts. The Walcheren expedition of 1809 was a fresh proof of our capacity for blundering. Pauperism was still increasing rapidly, and forebodings of a war with America beginning to trouble men interested in commerce. The English Opposition had ample texts for discourses; and a demand for change began to spring up which was no longer a reflection of foreign sympathies. An article in the _Edinburgh_ of January 1808, which professed to demonstrate the hopelessness of the Peninsular War, roused the wrath of the Tories. The _Quarterly Review_ was started by Canning and Scott, and the _Edinburgh_, in return, took a more decidedly Whig colour. The Radicals now showed themselves behind the Whigs. Cobbett, who had been the most vigorous of John Bull Anti-Jacobins, was driven by his hatred of the tax-gatherer and the misery of the agricultural labourers into the opposite camp, and his _Register_ became the most effective organ of Radicalism. Demands for reform began again to make themselves heard in parliament. Sir Francis Burdett, who had sat at the feet of Horne Tooke, and whose return with Cochrane for Westminster in 1807 was the first parliamentary triumph of the reformers, proposed a motion on 15th June 1809, which was, of course, rejected, but which was the first of a series, and marked the revival of a serious agitation not to cease till the triumph of 1832.

Meanwhile Bentham, meditating profoundly upon the Panopticon, had at last found out that he had begun at the wrong end. His reasoning had been thrown away upon the huge dead weight of official indifference, or worse than indifference. Why did they not accept the means for producing the greatest happiness of the greatest number? Because statesmen did not desire the end. And why not? To answer that question, and to show how a government could be constructed which should desire it, became a main occupation of Bentham's life. Henceforward, therefore, instead of merely treating of penal codes and other special reforms, his attention is directed to the previous question of political organisation; while at times he diverges to ill.u.s.trate incidentally the abuses of what he ironically calls the 'matchless const.i.tution.' Bentham's princ.i.p.al occupation, in a word, was to provide political philosophy for radical reformers.[300]

Bentham remained as much a recluse as ever. He seldom left Queen's Square Place except for certain summer outings. In 1807 he took a house at Barrow Green, near Oxted, in Surrey, lying in a picturesque hollow at the foot of the chalk hills.[301] It was an old-fas.h.i.+oned house, standing in what had been a park, with a lake and a comfortable kitchen garden. Bentham pottered about in the grounds and under the old chestnut-trees, codifying, gardening, and talking to occasional disciples. He returned thither in following years; but in 1814, probably in consequence of his compensation for the Panopticon, took a larger place, Ford Abbey, near Chard in Somersets.h.i.+re. It was a superb residence,[302] with chapel, cloisters, and corridors, a hall eighty feet long by thirty high, and a great dining parlour. Parts of the building dated from the twelfth century or the time of the Commonwealth, or had undergone alterations attributed to Inigo Jones. No Squire Western could have cared less for antiquarian a.s.sociations, but Bentham made a very fair monk. The place, for which he paid 315 a year, was congenial. He rode his favourite hobby of gardening, and took his regular 'ante-jentacular' and 'post-prandial' walks, and played battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k in the intervals of codification. He liked it so well that he would have taken it for life, but for the loss of 8000 or 10,000 in a Devons.h.i.+re marble-quarry.[303] In 1818 he gave it up, and thenceforward rarely quitted Queen's Square Place. His life was varied by few incidents, although his influence upon public affairs was for the first time becoming important. The busier journalists and platform orators did not trouble themselves much about philosophy. But they were in communication with men of a higher stamp, Romilly, James Mill, and others, who formed Bentham's innermost council. Thus the movements in the outside world set up an agitation in Bentham's study; and the recluse was prompted to set himself to work upon elaborating his own theories in various directions, in order to supply the necessary substratum of philosophical doctrine. If he had not the power of gaining the public ear, his oracles were transmitted through the disciples who also converted some of his raw materials into coherent books.

The most important of Bentham's disciples for many years was James Mill, and I shall have to say what more is necessary in regard to the active agitation when I speak of Mill himself. For the present, it is enough to say that Mill first became Bentham's proselyte about 1808. Mill stayed with Bentham at Barrow Green and at Ford Abbey. Though some differences caused superficial disturbances of their harmony, no prophet could have had a more zealous, uncompromising, and vigorous disciple. Mill's force of character qualified him to become the leader of the school; but his doctrine was always essentially the doctrine of Bentham, and for the present he was content to be the transmitter of his master's message to mankind. He was at this period a contributor to the _Edinburgh Review_; and in October 1809 he inserted some praises of Bentham in a review of a book upon legislation by S. Scipion Bexon. The article was cruelly mangled by Jeffrey, according to his custom, and Jeffrey's most powerful va.s.sal, Brougham, thought that the praises which remained were excessive.[304]

Obviously the orthodox Whigs were not prepared to swear allegiance to Bentham. He was drawing into closer connection with the Radicals. In 1809 Cobbett was denouncing the duke of York in consequence of the Mrs.

Clarke scandal. Bentham wrote to him, but anonymously and cautiously, to obtain doc.u.ments in regard to a previous libel case,[305] and proceeded to write a pamphlet on the _Elements of the Art of Packing (as applied to Special Juries)_, so sharp that his faithful adviser, Romilly, procured its suppression for the time.[306] Copies, however, were printed and privately given to a few who could be trusted. Bentham next wrote (1809) a 'Catechism of Parliamentary Reform,' which he communicated to Cobbett (16th November 1810), with a request for its publication in the _Register_.[307] Cobbett was at this time in prison for his attack upon flogging militia men; and, though still more hostile to government, was bound to be more cautious in his line of a.s.sault. The plan was not published, whether because too daring or too dull; but it was apparently printed. Bentham's opinion of Cobbett was anything but flattering. Cobbett, he thought in 1812, was a 'vile rascal,' and was afterwards p.r.o.nounced to be 'filled with the _odium humani generis_--his malevolence and lying beyond everything.'[308] Cobbett's radicalism, in fact, was of the type most hostile to the Utilitarians. John Hunt, in the _Examiner_, was 'trumpeting' Bentham and Romilly in 1812, and was praised accordingly.[309] Bentham formed an alliance with another leading Radical. He had made acquaintance by 1811 with Sir F. Burdett, to whom he then appealed for help in an attack upon the delays of Chancery.[310] Burdett, indeed, appeared to him to be far inferior to Romilly and Brougham, but he thought that so powerful a 'hero of the mob' ought to be turned to account in the good cause.[311] Burdett seems to have courted the old philosopher; and a few years later a closer alliance was brought about. The peace of 1815 was succeeded by a period of distress, the more acutely felt from the disappointment of natural hopes of prosperity; and a period of agitation, met by harsh repression, followed. Applications were made, to Bentham for permission to use his 'Catechism,' which was ultimately published (1818) in a cheap form by Wooler, well known as the editor of the democratic _Black Dwarf_.[312]

Burdett applied for a plan of parliamentary reform. Henry Bickersteth (1783-1851), afterwards Lord Langdale and Master of the Rolls, at this time a rising barrister of high character, wrote an appeal to Bentham and Burdett to combine in setting forth a scheme which, with such authority, must command general acceptance. The result was a series of resolutions moved by Burdett in the House of Commons on 2nd June 1818,[313] demanding universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and vote by ballot. Bentham had thus accepted the conclusions reached in a different way by the believers in that 'hodge-podge' of absurdities, the declaration of the rights of man. Curiously enough, his a.s.sault upon that doc.u.ment appeared in Dumont's French version in the year 1816, at the very time when he was accepting its practical conclusions.

The schemes in which Mill was interested at this time drew Bentham's attention in other directions. In 1813 the Quaker, William Allen, who had been a close ally of Mill, induced Bentham to invest money in the New Lanark establishment. Owen, whose benevolent schemes had been hampered by his partners, bought them out, the new capital being partly provided by Allen, Bentham, and others. Bentham afterwards spoke contemptuously of Owen, who, as he said, 'began in vapour and ended in smoke,'[314] and whose disciples came in after years into sharp conflict with the Utilitarians. Bentham, however, took pleasure, it seems, in Owen's benevolent schemes for infant education, and made money by his investment, for once combining business with philanthropy successfully.[315] Probably he regarded New Lanark as a kind of Panopticon. Owen had not as yet become a prophet of Socialism.

Another set of controversies in which Mill and his friends took an active part, started Bentham in a whole series of speculations. A plan (which I shall have to mention in connection with Mill), was devised in 1815 for a 'Chrestomathic school,' which was to give a sound education of proper Utilitarian tendencies to the upper and middle cla.s.ses.

Brougham, Mackintosh, Ricardo, William Allen, and Place were all interested in this undertaking.[316] Bentham offered a site at Queen's Square Place, and though the scheme never came to the birth, it set him actively at work. He wrote a series of papers during his first year at Ford Abbey[317] upon the theory of education, published in 1816 as _Chrestomathia_; and to this was apparently due a further excursion beyond the limits of jurisprudence. Educational controversy in that ignorant day was complicated by religious animosity; the National Society and the 'British and Foreign' Society were fighting under the banners of Bell and Lancaster, and the war roused excessive bitterness.

Bentham finding the church in his way, had little difficulty in discovering that the whole ecclesiastical system was part of the general complex of abuse against which he was warring. He fell foul of the Catechism; he exposed the abuses of non-residence and episcopal wealth; he discovered that the Thirty-nine Articles contained gross fallacies; he went on to make an onslaught upon the Apostle St Paul, whose evidence as to his conversion was exposed to a severe cross-examination; and, finally, he wrote, or supplied the materials for, a remarkable _a.n.a.lysis of Natural Religion_, which was ultimately published by Grote under the pseudonym 'Philip Beauchamp,' in 1822. This procedure from the particular case of the Catechism in schools up to the general problem of the utility of religion in general, is curiously characteristic of Bentham.

Bentham's mind was attracted to various other schemes by the disciples who came to sit at his feet, and professed, with more or less sincerity, to regard him as a Solon. Foreigners had been resorting to him from all parts of the world, and gave him hopes of new fields for codifying. As early as 1808 he had been visited at Barrow Green by the strange adventurer, politician, lawyer, and filibuster, Aaron Burr, famous for the duel in which he killed Alexander Hamilton, and now framing wild schemes for an empire in Mexico. Unscrupulous, restlessly active and cynical, he was a singular contrast to the placid philosopher, upon whom his confidences seem to have made an impression of not unpleasing horror. Burr's conversation suggested to Bentham a singular scheme for emigrating to Mexico. He applied seriously for introductions to Lord Holland, who had pa.s.sed some time in Spain, and to Holland's friend, Jovellanos (1749-1812), a member of the Spanish Junta, who had written treatises upon legislation (1785), of which Bentham approved.[318] The dream of Mexico was succeeded by a dream of Venezuela. General Miranda spent some years in England, and had become well known to James Mill. He was now about to start upon an unfortunate expedition to Venezuela, his native country. He took with him a draft of a law for the freedom of the press, which Bentham drew up, and he proposed that when his new state was founded, Bentham should be its legislator.[319] Miranda was betrayed to the Spanish government in 1812, and died (1816) in the hands of the Inquisition. Bolivar, who was also in London in 1810 and took some notice of Joseph Lancaster, applied in flattering terms to Bentham. Long afterwards, when dictator of Columbia, he forbade the use of Bentham's works in the schools, to which, however, the privilege of reading him was restored, and, let us hope, duly valued, in 1835.[320] Santander, another South American hero, was also a disciple, and encouraged the study of Bentham. Bentham says in 1830 that forty thousand copies of Dumont's _Traites_ had been sold in Paris for the South American trade.[321] What share Bentham may have had in modifying South American ideas is unknown to me. In the United States he had many disciples of a more creditable kind than Burr. He appealed in 1811 to Madison, then President, for permission to construct a 'Pannomion' or complete body of law, for the use of the United States; and urged his claims both upon Madison and the Governor of Pennsylvania in 1817, when peace had been restored. He had many conversations upon this project with John Quincy Adams, who was then American minister in England.[322] This, of course, came to nothing, but an eminent American disciple, Edward Livingston (1764-1836), between 1820 and 1830 prepared codes for the State of Louisiana, and warmly acknowledged his obligations to Bentham.[323] In 1830 Bentham also acknowledges a notice of his labours, probably resulting from this, which had been made in one of General Jackson's presidential messages.[324] In his later years the United States became his ideal, and he never tired of comparing its cheap and honest enactment with the corruption and extravagance at home.

NOTES:

[291] _Works_, x. 403.

[292] _Ibid._ x. 62.

[293] Bentham had himself written some of his papers in French.

[294] _Works_, x. 407, 410, 413, 419.

[295] _Ibid._ x. 415.

[296] Lord E. Fitzmaurice's _Life of Shelburne_.

[297] _Works_, x. 413.

[298] This statement, I believe, refers to a complimentary reference to Bentham in the preface to the French Code.

[299] _Works_, x. 458.

[300] Bentham says that he reached these conclusions some time before 1809: _Works_, iii. 435. Cf. _Ibid._ v. 278.

[301] _Works_, x. 425.

[302] See description in Bain's _James Mill_, 129-36.

[303] _Works_, x. 479, 573.

[304] _Works_, x. 452-54.; Bain's _James Mill_, 104.

[305] The case of the 'King _v._ Cobbett,' (1804), which led to the proceedings against Mr. Justice Johnson in 1805.--Cobbett's _State Trials_, xxix.

[306] _Works_, x. 448-49.

[307] _Ibid._ x. 458.

[308] _Works_, x. 471, 570.

[309] _Ibid._ x. 471.

[310] _Ibid._ x. 461.

[311] _Ibid._ x. 471.

[312] _Ibid._ x. 490.

[313] Printed in _Works_, x. 495-97.

[314] _Ibid._ x. 570.

[315] _Ibid._ x. 476.

[316] _Works_, x. 485.

[317] Bain's _James Mill_, 136. _Church of Englandism_ and _Not Paul but Jesus_ were also written at Ford Abbey.

[318] _Works_, x. 433, 448.

[319] _Ibid._ x. 457-58; Bain's _James Mill_, 79.

[320] _Works_, 553-54, 565.

[321] _Ibid._ xi. 53.

[322] See _Memoirs of J. Q. Adams_ (1874), iii. 511, 520, 532, 535-39, 540, 544, 560, 562-63. and Bentham's letter to Adams in _Works_, x. 554.

[323] _Works_, xi. 23.