VI. of England; he was saved from being one of those Lecture jurists who know a little of every law but their own. His father's wealth even more profoundly affected Bentham's career. He never had to rely upon fees for his support. At his father's death he became possessed of ample means. Thus he was able to follow, as he did follow through life, the bent of his own genius.1 His genius was of the rarest quality. 2 3 In Bentham's intellect were united talents seldom found in combination; a jurist's capacity for the grasp of general principles and the acumen of a natural born logician were blended with the resourcefulness of a mechanical inventor. In studying Bentham's intellectual character we are reminded that, if he was the follower of Hobbes and of Locke, he was the contemporary of Arkwright and of Watt. How near Bentham's turn of mind lay to that of men renowned for mechanical inventions may be seen from a transaction which has perplexed and sometimes amused his admirers. He devoted trouble, money, thought, and time to the creation of the "Panopticon or 'Inspection-house,”—that is, a model prison so planned that from one point in the building could be seen all that was going on in every other portion of the establishment. Of the mixed ingenuity and weakness of Bentham's plan nothing need here be said; the point to be noticed is the light which the scheme throws on the nature of Bentham's intellect. The 1 Bentham in this matter resembled Darwin. Each of these eminent men owed to inherited wealth the possibility of wholly dedicating his whole life to its appropriate work. 2 b. 1732, d. 1792. 3 b. 1736, d. 1819. K Lecture Panopticon was a mechanical contrivance from which, VI. if rightly used, he, after the manner of ingenious projectors, expected untold benefits for mankind; "morals reformed, health preserved, industry invigor 66 66 1 ated, instruction diffused, public burdens lightened, economy seated as it were upon a rock, the Gordian "knot of the poor-law not cut but untied-all by a simple idea in architecture!" He was in truth created to be the inventor and patentee of legal reforms. It is in this inventiveness that he differs from and excels his best known disciples. Austin may have equalled him in the capacity for analysing legal conceptions, James Mill may have surpassed him in metaphysical subtlety, John Mill had acquired under a course of elaborate training a more complete philosophical equipment, and was endowed by nature with wider sympathies than Bentham; but neither Austin, nor James Mill, nor John Mill, possessed any touch of Bentham's inventive genius, nor in fact made any suggestion, which was at once original and valuable, for the amendment of the law of England. The course of Bentham's life was, however, finally determined, neither by the opportuneness of circumstances, nor by the possession of wealth, nor even by the peculiarity of his intellectual gifts, but by the nature and the development of his moral character. In early manhood he was "converted "2-I use the term deliberately, as it better gives my meaning 1 Bentham, Works, iv. p. 39. 2 "The name of Jeremy Bentham, one of the few who have wholly "lived for what they held to be the good of the human race, has "become even among educated men a byword for what is called his ""low view' of human nature. The fact is that, under its most VI. than does any other expression-to an unshakeable Lecture faith in that form of utilitarianism which places the object of life in the promotion of "the greatest "happiness of the greatest number." When about twenty years of age he found this formula in a pamphlet of Priestley's and accepted it as the guide of his life. "It was by that pamphlet and this phrase in it," writes Bentham, "that my principles on the subject "of morality, public and private, were determined. "It was from that pamphlet and that page of it that "I drew the phrase, the words and import of which "have been so widely diffused over the civilised world. "At the sight of it, I cried out as it were in an "inward ecstasy, like Archimedes on the discovery of "the fundamental principle of hydrostatics, Eupnка. "Little did I think of the corrections which within a few years on a closer scrutiny I found myself under "the necessity of applying to it."1 With this combine the following expressions taken from Bentham's note-books. "Would you appear actuated by generous passion? "be so. You need then but show yourself as you "I would have the dearest friend I have to know, "that his interests, if they come in competition with "those of the public, are as nothing to me. Thus I "will serve my friends-thus would I be served by "them." "important aspect, he greatly overrated human nature. 1 Montague, Bentham's Fragment on Government, p. 34. Lecture VI. "Has a man talents? he owes them to his country "in every way in which they can be serviceable." 1 This creed, however, which we should now term the enthusiasm of humanity, need not have impelled Bentham to labour at the reform of the law. That his passion for the furtherance of human happiness took this particular form, arose from his becoming possessed by the two convictions that legislation was the most important of human pursuits, and that Jeremy Bentham was born with a genius for legislation. 6 "Have I," he asked, "a genius for anything? "What can I produce?' That was the first inquiry "he made of himself. Then came another. What of all earthly pursuits is the most important?' Legis"lation,' was the answer Helvetius gave. 'Have I a genius for legislation?' Again and again was 66 the question put to himself. He turned it over in "his thoughts; he sought every symptom he could discover in his natural disposition or acquired "habits. And have I indeed a genius for legisla“tion?' I gave myself the answer, fearfully and "tremblingly, "Yes.""2 Of these convictions the first was shared by the best thinkers of the eighteenth century, and contained an immense amount of relative truth; the need of the time was the reform of the institutions of Europe. The second was absolutely true, and its truth has been recognised by the wisest men of the generations 1 Bentham's Works, x. (“Extracts from Bentham's Commonplace Book "), p. 73. 2 Sir Roland Knyvet Wilson, Bart., History of Modern English Law (ed. 1875), p. 136. VI. which have followed Bentham; he was in very truth Lecture the first and greatest of legal philosophers. My object in this lecture is, first, to sketch in the merest outline the ideas of Benthamism or individualism, in so far as when applied by practical statesmen they have affected the growth of English law; next to explain and describe the general acceptance of Benthamism as the dominant legislative opinion of a particular era; and, lastly, to illustrate by examples the general trend of Benthamite or individualistic legislation. (A) Benthamite Ideas as to the Reform of the Law Bentham considered exclusively as a reformer of the law of England achieved two ends. He determined, in the first place, the principles on which reform should be based. He determined, in the second place, the method, i.e., the mode of legislation, by which, in England, reform should be carried out. As to the Principles of Law Reform.-The ideas which underlie the Benthamite or individualistic scheme of reform may conveniently be summarised under three leading principles and two corollaries. I. Legislation is a Science. English law, as it existed at the end of the eighteenth century, had in truth developed almost 1 These principles, it should be remembered, are not so much the dogmas to be found in Bentham's Works as ideas due in the main to Bentham, which were ultimately, though often in a very modified form, accepted by the reformers or legislators who practically applied utilitarian conceptions to the amendment of the law of England. |