which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. 44. A General Condemnation of Government BY WILLIAM GODWIN Society is an ideal existence, and not on its own account entitled to the smallest regard. The wealth, prosperity, and glory of the whole are unintelligible chimeras. Set no value on anything, but in proportion as you are convinced of its tendency to make individual men happy and virtuous. Benefit, by every practical mode, man wherever he exists; but be not deceived by the specious idea of affording services to a body of men, for which no individual man is the better. Individuals cannot have too frequent or unlimited intercourse with each other; but societies of men have no interests to explain and adjust, except so far as error and violence may render explanation necessary. This consideration annihilates at once the principal objects of that mysterious and crooked policy which has hitherto occupied the attention of governments. Government can have but two legitimate purposes, the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community, and the common defence against external invasion. Legislation, that is, the authoritative enunciation of abstract or general propositions, is a function of equivocal nature, and will never be exercised in a pure state of society, or a state approaching to purity, but with great caution and unwillingness. It is the most absolute of the functions of government, and government is itself a remedy that invariably brings its own evils along with it. Legislation, as it has been usually understood, is not an affair of human competence. Reason is the only legislator, and her decrees are irrevocable and uniform. The functions of society extend, not to the making, but the interpreting of law; it cannot decree, it can only declare that which the nature of things has already decreed, and the propriety of which irresistibly flows from the circumstances of the case. The true reason why the mass of mankind has so often been made the dupe of knaves has been the mysterious and complicated nature of the social system. Once annihilate the quackery of government, and the most homebred understanding will be prepared Adapted from An Enquiry concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness, 514, 561, 564, 555, 168, 575, 579 (1793). to scorn the shallow artifices of the state juggler that would mislead him. With what delight must every well informed friend of mankind look forward to the auspicious period, the dissolution of political government, of that brute engine, which has been the only perennial cause of the vices of mankind, and which has mischiefs of various forms incorporated with substance, and not otherwise to be removed than by its utter annihilation. 45. The Identity of Individual and Social Good" BY PIERCY RAVENSTONE Nature has implanted in every man's breast an instinct which teaches him intuitively to pursue his own happiness; and, by connecting the welfare of every part of society with that of the whole, she has wisely ordained that he shall not be able to realize his own wishes without contributing to the happiness of others Every man may thus safely be intrusted with the care of working out his own prosperity. It is not necessary for governments, it is therefore no part of their duty, to teach to individuals what will most conduce to the success of their pursuits; they are ill-calculated for such a superintendence. All care of this sort is on their part wholly impertinent. Their functions are of quite a different. nature; to correct the vicious attachment to their own interests which too frequently induces men to seek their own apparent good by the injury of others, which would disorder the whole scheme of society, to bring about what they mistakenly consider their own happiness To restrain, not to direct, is the true function of the government; it is the only one it is called on to perform, it is the only one it can safely execute. It never goes out of its province without doing mischief. The mischief is not always apparent, for the constitution of the patient is often sufficiently strong to resist the deleterious effects of the quackery. But it is not safe to try experiments which can do no good, merely because the strength of the patient may prevent them from being injurious. The spirit of interference has never manifested itself so strongly as of late years. It constitutes the very essence of modern political economy. Everything is to be done by the state; nothing is to be left to the discretion of individuals. It is proposed to transfer men into a species of political nursery-ground, where the quality of plants is to be regulated with mathematical exactness, to be fitted. to the capacity of the soil; where every exuberance in their shoots. 'From A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy, 2-3 (1821). is to be immediately pruned away, and their branches confined within the bounds of the supporting espalier. 46. A Protest against Useless Restrictions10 BY JEREMY BENTHAM Ashurst. The law of this country only lays such restraints on the actions of individuals as are necessary for the safety and good order of the community at large. Truth.-I sow corn: partridges eat it, and if I attempt to defend it against the partridges, I am fined or sent to gaol: all this, for fear a great man, who is above sowing corn, should be in want of partridges. The trade I was born to is overstocked; hands are wanting in another. If I offer to work at that other, I may be sent to gaol for it. Why? Because I have not been working at it as an apprentice for seven years. What's the consequence? That, as there is no work for men in my original trade, I must either come upon the parish or starve. There is no employment for me in my own parish: there is abundance in the next. Yet if I offer to go there, I am driven away. Why? Because I might become unable to work one of these days, and so I must not work while I am able. I am thrown upon one parish now, for fear I should fall upon another, forty or fifty years hence. At this rate how is work ever to be got done? If a man is not poor, he won't work: and if he is poor, the law won't let him. How then is it that so much is done as is done? As pockets are picked-by stealth, and because the law is so wicked that it is only here and there that a man can be found wicked enough to think of executing it. Pray, Mr. Justice, how is the community you speak of the better for any of these restraints? and where is the necessity of them? and how is safety strengthened or good order benefitted by them? But these are only three out of this thousand. 47. Opportunity BY JOHN J. INGALLS Master of human destinies am I! Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait; Cities and fields I walk: I penetrate Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 1° From Truth against Ashurst, in Works of Jeremy Bentham, V, 234 (1823). Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late I answer not, and I return no more! D. THE INTERPRETATION OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE 48. The Philosophy of Individualism11 BY ALBERT V. DICEY Individualism as regards legislation is popularly connected with the name and the principles of Bentham. The ideas which underlie the Benthamite or individualistic scheme of reform may conveniently be summarized under three leading principles and two corollaries. I. English law, as it existed at the end of the eighteenth century, had developed almost hap-hazard, as the result of customs or modes of thought which had prevailed at different periods. The laws had for the most part never been enacted. In order to amend the fabric of the law we must, so Bentham insisted, lay down a plan grounded on fixed principles. Legislation, in short, he proclaimed, is a science based on the characteristics of human nature, and the art of law-making, if it is to be successful, must be the application of legislative principles. II. The right aim of legislation is the carrying out of the principle of utility, or, in other words, the proper end of every law is the promotion of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This principle is the formula with which popular memory has most closely connected the name of Bentham. Whatever objections this principle may be open to, one may with confidence assert that it is far more applicable to law than to morals, for at least two reasons: First, legislation deals with numbers and with whole classes. of men; morality deals with individuals. It is obviously easier to determine what are the things which as a general rule promote the "Adapted from Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century, 125-149. Copyright by Macmillan & Co. (1905). happiness of a large number of persons, than to form even a conjecture as to what may constitute the happiness of an individual. Let it be noted that the law aims not at positive happiness, but only at the creation of conditions under which it is likely that its subjects will prosper. Secondly, law is concerned primarily with external actions, and is only very indirectly concerned with motives. Morality, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with motives and feelings. But it is far easier to maintain that the principle of utility is the proper standard of right action than that it supplies the foundation on which rests the conviction of right or wrong. Ideas of happiness, it has been objected, vary in different ages, countries, and among different classes; a legislator, therefore, gains no real guidance from the dogma that laws should aim at promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number. To this objection there exists at least two answers. The first is that, even if the variability of men's conceptions of happiness be admitted, the concession proves no more than that the application of the principle of utility is conditioned by the ideas of human welfare which prevail at a given time in a given country. There is no reason why utilitarianism should refuse to accept this conclusion. Different laws may promote the happiness of different people. The second reply is that, as regards the conditions of public prosperity, the citizens of civilized states have, in modern times, reached a large amount of agreement. For instance, who can seriously doubt that a plentiful supply of cheap food, efficient legal protection against violence and fraud, and the freedom of all classes from excessive labor conduce to the public welfare? What man out of Bedlam ever dreamed of a country the happier for pestilence, famine and war? Laws deal with very ordinary matters, and deal with them in a rough and ready manner. The character, therefore, of a law, may well be tested by the rough criterion embodied in the doctrine of utility. There still exists, however, an objection that must be examined with care. Bentham and his disciples have displayed a tendency to underestimate the diversity between human beings. They have too easily accepted the notion of uniformity in ideas of happiness in different countries and different ages. This supposition has facilitated legislation, but it has led to the feeling that laws which in the ninteenth century promoted the happiness of Englishmen, must at all times promote the happiness of the inhabitants of all countries. The foundation then of legislative utilitarianism is the combination of two convictions. The one is the belief that the end of human existence is the attainment of happiness; the other is the |