No More Learning

Let the Reviewer ask one of these what he thinks on the
subject. We shall not undertake to whip a pupil of so little promise
through his first course of metaphysics. We shall, therefore, only
say--leaving him to guess and wonder what we can mean--that, in
our opinion, the Duchess of Cleveland was not a merely corporal
pleasure,--that the feeling which leads a prince to prefer one woman to
all others, and to lavish the wealth of kingdoms on her, is a feeling
which can only be explained by the law of association.

But we are tired, and even more ashamed than tired, of exposing these
blunders. The whole article is of a piece. One passage, however, we must
select, because it contains a very gross misrepresentation.

"'THEY NEVER ALLUDED TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVING
THAT THE POOR WERE INCLINED TO ROB THE RICH. ' They only said, 'as soon
as the poor AGAIN began to compare their cottages and salads with the
hotels and banquets of the rich, there would have been another scramble
for property, another general confiscation,' etc. "

We said that, IF MR MILL'S PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN NATURE WERE CORRECT,
there would have been another scramble for property, and another
confiscation. We particularly pointed this out in our last article. We
showed the Westminster Reviewer that he had misunderstood us. We dwelt
particularly on the condition which was introduced into our statement.
We said that we had not given, and did not mean to give, any opinion
of our own. And, after this, the Westminster Reviewer thinks proper to
repeat his former misrepresentation, without taking the least notice of
that qualification to which we, in the most marked manner, called his
attention.

We hasten on to the most curious part of the article under our
consideration--the defence of the "greatest happiness principle. " The
Reviewer charges us with having quite mistaken its nature.

"All that they have established is, that they do not understand it.
Instead of the truism of the Whigs, 'that the greatest happiness is the
greatest happiness,' what Mr Bentham had demonstrated, or at all events
had laid such foundations that there was no trouble in demonstrating,
was, that the greatest happiness of the individual was in the long run
to be obtained by pursuing the greatest happiness of the aggregate. "

It was distinctly admitted by the Westminster Reviewer, as we remarked
in our last article, that he could give no answer to the question,--why
governments should attempt to produce the greatest possible happiness?
The Reviewer replies thus:--

"Nothing of the kind will be admitted at all. In the passage thus
selected to be tacked to the other, the question started was, concerning
'the object of government;' in which government was spoken of as an
operation, not as anything that is capable of feeling pleasure or
pain. In this sense it is true enough, that OUGHT is not predicable of
governments. "

We will quote, once again, the passage which we quoted in our last
Number; and we really hope that our brother critic will feel something
like shame while he peruses it.

"The real answer appeared to be, that men at large OUGHT not to allow
a government to afflict them with more evil or less good, than they
can help. What a GOVERNMENT ought to do is a mysterious and searching
question which those may answer who know what it means; but what other
men ought to do is a question of no mystery at all. The word OUGHT,
if it means anything, must have reference to some kind of interest or
motives; and what interest a government has in doing right, when
it happens to be interested in doing wrong, is a question for the
schoolmen. The fact appears to be that OUGHT is not predicable of
governments. The question is not, why governments are bound not to do
this or that, but why other men should let them if they can help it. The
point is not to determine why the lion should not eat sheep, but why men
should not eat their own mutton if they can. "

We defy the Westminster Reviewer to reconcile this passage with the
"general happiness principle" as he now states it. He tells us that
he meant by government, not the people invested with the powers of
government, but a mere OPERATION incapable of feeling pleasure or pain.
We say, that he meant the people invested with the powers of government,
and nothing else. It is true that OUGHT is not predicable of an
operation. But who would ever dream of raising any question about the
DUTIES of an operation? What did the Reviewer mean by saying, that
a government could not be interested in doing right because it was
interested in doing wrong? Can an operation be interested in either?
And what did he mean by his comparison about the lion? Is a lion an
operation incapable of pain or pleasure? And what did he mean by the
expression, "other men," so obviously opposed to the word "government? "
But let the public judge between us. It is superfluous to argue a point
so clear.

The Reviewer does indeed seem to feel that his expressions cannot be
explained away, and attempts to shuffle out of the difficulty by owning,
that "the double meaning of the word government was not got clear of
without confusion. " He has now, at all events, he assures us, made
himself master of Mr Bentham's philosophy. The real and genuine
"greatest happiness principle" is, that the greatest happiness of every
individual is identical with the greatest happiness of society; and all
other "greatest happiness principles" whatever are counterfeits. "This,"
says he, "is the spirit of Mr Bentham's principle; and if there is
anything opposed to it in any former statement it may be corrected by
the present. "

Assuredly, if a fair and honourable opponent had, in discussing a
question so abstruse as that concerning the origin of moral obligation,
made some unguarded admission inconsistent with the spirit of his
doctrines, we should not be inclined to triumph over him. But no
tenderness is due to a writer who, in the very act of confessing his
blunders, insults those by whom his blunders have been detected,
and accuses them of misunderstanding what, in fact, he has himself
mis-stated.

The whole of this transaction illustrates excellently the real character
of this sect. A paper comes forth, professing to contain a full
development of the "greatest happiness principle," with the latest
improvements of Mr Bentham. The writer boasts that his article has
the honour of being the announcement and the organ of this wonderful
discovery, which is to make "the bones of sages and patriots stir within
their tombs. "

This "magnificent principle" is then stated thus: Mankind ought to
pursue their greatest happiness. But there are persons whose interest is
opposed to the greatest happiness of mankind. OUGHT is not predicable of
such persons. For the word OUGHT has no meaning unless it be used with
reference to some interest.

We answered, with much more lenity than we should have shown to such
nonsense, had it not proceeded, as we supposed, from Mr Bentham, that
interest was synonymous with greatest happiness; and that, therefore, if
the word OUGHT has no meaning, unless used with reference to interest,
then, to say that mankind ought to pursue their greatest happiness, is
simply to say, that the greatest happiness is the greatest happiness;
that every individual pursues his own happiness; that either what
he thinks his happiness must coincide with the greatest happiness of
society or not; that, if what he thinks his happiness coincides with the
greatest happiness of society, he will attempt to promote the greatest
happiness of society whether he ever heard of the "greatest happiness
principle" or not; and that, by the admission of the Westminster
Reviewer, if his happiness is inconsistent with the greatest happiness
of society, there is no reason why he should promote the greatest
happiness of society. Now, that there are individuals who think that for
their happiness which is not for the greatest happiness of society is
evident. The Westminster Reviewer allowed that some of these individuals
were in the right; and did not pretend to give any reason which could
induce any one of them to think himself in the wrong. So that the
"magnificent principle" turned out to be, either a truism or a
contradiction in terms; either this maxim--"Do what you do;" or this
maxim, "Do what you cannot do. "

The Westminster Reviewer had the wit to see that he could not defend
this palpable nonsense; but, instead of manfully owning that he had
misunderstood the whole nature of the "greatest happiness principle" in
the summer, and had obtained new light during the autumn, he attempts
to withdraw the former principle unobserved, and to substitute another,
directly opposed to it, in its place; clamouring all the time against
our unfairness, like one who, while changing the cards, diverts the
attention of the table from his sleight of hand by vociferating charges
of foul play against other people.

The "greatest happiness principle" for the present quarter is then
this,--that every individual will best promote his own happiness in
this world, religious considerations being left out of the question,
by promoting the greatest happiness of the whole species. And
this principle, we are told, holds good with respect to kings and
aristocracies as well as with other people.

"It is certain that the individual operators in any government, if they
were thoroughly intelligent and entered into a perfect calculation
of all existing chances, would seek for their own happiness in the
promotion of the general; which brings them, if they knew it, under
Mr Bentham's rule. The mistake of supposing the contrary, lies in
confounding criminals who have had the luck to escape punishment with
those who have the risk still before them. Suppose, for instance, a
member of the House of Commons were at this moment to debate within
himself, whether it would be for his ultimate happiness to begin,
according to his ability, to misgovern. If he could be sure of being
as lucky as some that are dead and gone, there might be difficulty in
finding him an answer. But he is NOT sure; and never can be, till he
is dead. He does not know that he is not close upon the moment when
misgovernment such as he is tempted to contemplate, will be made a
terrible example of. It is not fair to pick out the instance of the
thief that has died unhanged. The question is, whether thieving is at
this moment an advisable trade to begin with all the possibilities of
hanging not got over? This is the spirit of Mr Bentham's principle; and
if there is anything opposed to it in any former statement, it may be
corrected by the present. "

We hope that we have now at last got to the real "magnificent
principle,"--to the principle which is really to make "the bones of the
sages and patriots stir. " What effect it may produce on the bones of
the dead we shall not pretend to decide; but we are sure that it will do
very little for the happiness of the living.

In the first place, nothing is more certain than this, that the
Utilitarian theory of government, as developed in Mr Mill's Essay and
in all the other works on the subject which have been put forth by the
sect, rests on those two principles,--that men follow their interest,
and that the interest of individuals may be, and in fact perpetually
is, opposed to the interest of society. Unless these two principles be
granted, Mr Mill's Essay does not contain one sound sentence. All his
arguments against monarchy and aristocracy, all his arguments in favour
of democracy, nay, the very argument by which he shows that there is
any necessity for having government at all, must be rejected as utterly
worthless.

This is so palpable that even the Westminster Reviewer, though not the
most clear-sighted of men, could not help seeing it. Accordingly, he
attempts to guard himself against the objection, after the manner of
such reasoners, by committing two blunders instead of one. "All this,"
says he, "only shows that the members of a government would do well if
they were all-wise," and he proceeds to tell us that, as rulers are not
all-wise, they will invariably act against this principle wherever they
can, so that the democratical checks will still be necessary to produce
good government.

No form which human folly takes is so richly and exquisitely laughable
as the spectacle of an Utilitarian in a dilemma. What earthly good can
there be in a principle upon which no man will act until he is all-wise?
A certain most important doctrine, we are told, has been demonstrated so
clearly that it ought to be the foundation of the science of government.
And yet the whole frame of government is to be constituted exactly as
if this fundamental doctrine were false, and on the supposition that no
human being will ever act as if he believed it to be true!

The whole argument of the Utilitarians in favour of universal suffrage
proceeds on the supposition that even the rudest and most uneducated men
cannot, for any length of time, be deluded into acting against their
own true interest. Yet now they tell us that, in all aristocratical
communities, the higher and more educated class will, not occasionally,
but invariably, act against its own interest. Now, the only use of
proving anything, as far as we can see, is that people may believe it.
To say that a man does what he believes to be against his happiness is
a contradiction in terms. If, therefore, government and laws are to be
constituted on the supposition on which Mr Mill's Essay is founded,
that all individuals will, whenever they have power over others put into
their hands, act in opposition to the general happiness, then government
and laws must be constituted on the supposition that no individual
believes, or ever will believe, his own happiness to be identical with
the happiness of society. That is to say, government and laws are to
be constituted on the supposition that no human being will ever
be satisfied by Mr Bentham's proof of his "greatest happiness
principle,"--a supposition which may be true enough, but which says
little, we think, for the principle in question.

But where has this principle been demonstrated? We are curious, we
confess, to see this demonstration which is to change the face of the
world and yet is to convince nobody. The most amusing circumstance is
that the Westminster Reviewer himself does not seem to know whether
the principle has been demonstrated or not. "Mr Bentham," he says, "has
demonstrated it, or at all events has laid such foundations that there
is no trouble in demonstrating it. " Surely it is rather strange that
such a matter should be left in doubt. The Reviewer proposed, in his
former article, a slight verbal emendation in the statement of the
principle; he then announced that the principle had received its last
improvement; and gloried in the circumstance that the Westminster Review
had been selected as the organ of that improvement. Did it never occur
to him that one slight improvement to a doctrine is to prove it?

Mr Bentham has not demonstrated the "greatest happiness principle," as
now stated. He is far too wise a man to think of demonstrating any
such thing. In those sections of his "Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation", to which the Reviewer refers us in his note,
there is not a word of the kind. Mr Bentham says, most truly, that there
are no occasions in which a man has not SOME motives for consulting the
happiness of other men; and he proceeds to set forth what those motives
are--sympathy on all occasions, and the love of reputation on most
occasions. This is the very doctrine which we have been maintaining
against Mr Mill and the Westminster Reviewer. The principal charge which
we brought against Mr Mill was, that those motives to which Mr Bentham
ascribes so much influence were quite left out of consideration in his
theory. The Westminster Reviewer, in the very article now before us,
abuses us for saying, in the spirit, and almost in the words of Mr
Bentham, that "there is a certain check to the rapacity and cruelty
of men in their desire of the good opinion of others. " But does this
principle, in which we fully agree with Mr Bentham, go the length of
the new "greatest happiness principle? " The question is, not whether men
have SOME motives for promoting the greatest happiness, but whether
the STRONGER motives be those which impel them to promote the greatest
happiness. That this would always be the case if men knew their own
worldly interests is the assertion of the Reviewer. As he expresses some
doubt whether Mr Bentham has demonstrated this or not, we would advise
him to set the point at rest by giving his own demonstration.

The Reviewer has not attempted to give a general confirmation of the
"greatest happiness principle;" but he has tried to prove that it holds
good in one or two particular cases. And even in those particular cases
he has utterly failed. A man, says he, who calculated the chances fairly
would perceive that it would be for his greatest happiness to abstain
from stealing; for a thief runs a greater risk of being hanged than an
honest man.

It would have been wise, we think, in the Westminster Reviewer, before
he entered on a discussion of this sort, to settle in what human
happiness consists. Each of the ancient sects of philosophy held some
tenet on this subject which served for a distinguishing badge. The
summum bonum of the Utilitarians, as far as we can judge from the
passage which we are now considering, is the not being hanged.

That it is an unpleasant thing to be hanged, we most willingly concede
to our brother. But that the whole question of happiness or misery
resolves itself into this single point, we cannot so easily admit. We
must look at the thing purchased as well as the price paid for it. A
thief, assuredly, runs a greater risk of being hanged than a labourer;
and so an officer in the army runs a greater risk of being shot than a
banker's clerk; and a governor of India runs a greater risk of dying of
cholera than a lord of the bedchamber. But does it therefore follow that
every man, whatever his habits or feelings may be, would, if he knew
his own happiness, become a clerk rather than a cornet, or goldstick in
waiting rather than governor of India?

Nothing can be more absurd than to suppose, like the Westminster
Reviewer, that thieves steal only because they do not calculate the
chances of being hanged as correctly as honest men. It never seems to
have occurred to him as possible that a man may so greatly prefer the
life of a thief to the life of a labourer that he may determine to brave
the risk of detection and punishment, though he may even think that risk
greater than it really is. And how, on Utilitarian principles, is such
a man to be convinced that he is in the wrong? "You will be found
out. "--"Undoubtedly. "--"You will be hanged within two years. "--"I expect
to be hanged within one year. "--"Then why do you pursue this lawless
mode of life? "--"Because I would rather live for one year with plenty
of money, dressed like a gentleman, eating and drinking of the best,
frequenting public places, and visiting a dashing mistress, than break
stones on the road, or sit down to the loom, with the certainty of
attaining a good old age. It is my humour. Are you answered? "

A king, says the Reviewer again, would govern well, if he were wise,
for fear of provoking his subjects to insurrection. Therefore the true
happiness of a king is identical with the greatest happiness of society.
Tell Charles II. that, if he will be constant to his queen, sober
at table, regular at prayers, frugal in his expenses, active in the
transaction of business, if he will drive the herd of slaves, buffoons,
and procurers from Whitehall, and make the happiness of his people the
rule of his conduct, he will have a much greater chance of reigning
in comfort to an advanced age; that his profusion and tyranny have
exasperated his subjects, and may, perhaps, bring him to an end as
terrible as his father's. He might answer, that he saw the danger, but
that life was not worth having without ease and vicious pleasures. And
what has our philosopher to say? Does he not see that it is no more
possible to reason a man out of liking a short life and a merry one more
than a long life and a dull one than to reason a Greenlander out of his
train oil? We may say that the tastes of the thief and the tyrant differ
from ours; but what right have we to say, looking at this world alone,
that they do not pursue their greatest happiness very judiciously?

It is the grossest ignorance of human nature to suppose that another man
calculates the chances differently from us, merely because he does what,
in his place, we should not do. Every man has tastes and propensities,
which he is disposed to gratify at a risk and expense which people of
different temperaments and habits think extravagant. "Why," says Horace,
"does one brother like to lounge in the forum, to play in the Campus,
and to anoint himself in the baths, so well, that he would not put
himself out of his way for all the wealth of the richest plantations of
the East; while the other toils from sunrise to sunset for the purpose
of increasing his fortune? " Horace attributes the diversity to the
influence of the Genius and the natal star: and eighteen hundred
years have taught us only to disguise our ignorance beneath a more
philosophical language.

We think, therefore, that the Westminster Reviewer, even if we admit his
calculation of the chances to be right, does not make out his case. But
he appears to us to miscalculate chances more grossly than any person
who ever acted or speculated in this world. "It is for the happiness,"
says he, "of a member of the House of Commons to govern well; for he
never can tell that he is not close on the moment when misgovernment
will be terribly punished: if he was sure that he should be as lucky as
his predecessors, it might be for his happiness to misgovern; but he is
not sure. " Certainly a member of Parliament is not sure that he shall
not be torn in pieces by a mob, or guillotined by a revolutionary
tribunal for his opposition to reform. Nor is the Westminster Reviewer
sure that he shall not be hanged for writing in favour of universal
suffrage. We may have democratical massacres. We may also have
aristocratical proscriptions. It is not very likely, thank God, that we
should see either. But the radical, we think, runs as much danger as the
aristocrat. As to our friend the Westminster Reviewer, he, it must
be owned, has as good a right as any man on his side, "Antoni gladios
contemnere. " But take the man whose votes, ever since he has sate in
Parliament, have been the most uniformly bad, and oppose him to the man
whose votes have been the most uniformly good. The Westminster Reviewer
would probably select Mr Sadler and Mr Hume. Now, does any rational man
think,--will the Westminster Reviewer himself say,--that Mr Sadler runs
more risk of coming to a miserable end on account of his public conduct
than Mr Hume? Mr Sadler does not know that he is not close on the moment
when he will be made an example of; for Mr Sadler knows, if possible,
less about the future than about the past. But he has no more reason to
expect that he shall be made an example of than to expect that London
will be swallowed up by an earthquake next spring; and it would be as
foolish in him to act on the former supposition as on the latter. There
is a risk; for there is a risk of everything which does not involve a
contradiction; but it is a risk from which no man in his wits would give
a shilling to be insured. Yet our Westminster Reviewer tells us that
this risk alone, apart from all considerations of religion, honour
or benevolence, would, as a matter of mere calculation, induce a wise
member of the House of Commons to refuse any emoluments which might be
offered him as the price of his support to pernicious measures.

We have hitherto been examining cases proposed by our opponent. It is
now our turn to propose one; and we beg that he will spare no wisdom in
solving it.

A thief is condemned to be hanged. On the eve of the day fixed for the
execution a turnkey enters his cell and tells him that all is safe,
that he has only to slip out, that his friends are waiting in the
neighbourhood with disguises, and that a passage is taken for him in
an American packet. Now, it is clearly for the greatest happiness of
society that the thief should be hanged and the corrupt turnkey exposed
and punished. Will the Westminster Reviewer tell us that it is for the
greatest happiness of the thief to summon the head jailer and tell the
whole story? Now, either it is for the greatest happiness of a thief
to be hanged or it is not. If it is, then the argument, by which the
Westminster Reviewer attempts to prove that men do not promote their own
happiness by thieving, falls to the ground. If it is not, then there are
men whose greatest happiness is at variance with the greatest happiness
of the community.

To sum up our arguments shortly, we say that the "greatest happiness
principle," as now stated, is diametrically opposed to the principle
stated in the Westminster Review three months ago.

We say that, if the "greatest happiness principle," as now stated, be
sound, Mr Mill's Essay, and all other works concerning Government which,
like that Essay, proceed on the supposition that individuals may have an
interest opposed to the greatest happiness of society, are fundamentally
erroneous.

We say that those who hold this principle to be sound must be prepared
to maintain, either that monarchs and aristocracies may be trusted to
govern the community, or else that men cannot be trusted to follow their
own interest when that interest is demonstrated to them.

We say that, if men cannot be trusted to follow their own interest
when that interest has been demonstrated to them, then the Utilitarian
arguments in favour of universal suffrage are good for nothing.

We say that the "greatest happiness principle" has not been proved;
that it cannot be generally proved; that even in the particular cases
selected by the Reviewer it is not clear that the principle is true;
and that many cases might be stated in which the common sense of mankind
would at once pronounce it to be false.

We now leave the Westminster Reviewer to alter and amend his
"magnificent principle" as he thinks best. Unlimited, it is false.
Properly limited, it will be barren. The "greatest happiness principle"
of the 1st of July, as far as we could discern its meaning through
a cloud of rodomontade, was an idle truism. The "greatest happiness
principle" of the 1st of October is, in the phrase of the American
newspapers, "important if true. " But unhappily it is not true. It is not
our business to conjecture what new maxim is to make the bones of sages
and patriots stir on the 1st of December. We can only say that, unless
it be something infinitely more ingenious than its two predecessors, we
shall leave it unmolested. The Westminster Reviewer may, if he pleases,
indulge himself like Sultan Schahriar with espousing a rapid succession
of virgin theories. But we must beg to be excused from playing the part
of the vizier who regularly attended on the day after the wedding to
strangle the new Sultana.

The Westminster Reviewer charges us with urging it as an objection to
the "greatest happiness principle" that "it is included in the Christian
morality. " This is a mere fiction of his own. We never attacked the
morality of the Gospel. We blamed the Utilitarians for claiming the
credit of a discovery, when they had merely stolen that morality, and
spoiled it in the stealing. They have taken the precept of Christ and
left the motive; and they demand the praise of a most wonderful and
beneficial invention, when all that they have done has been to make
a most useful maxim useless by separating it from its sanction. On
religious principles it is true that every individual will best promote
his own happiness by promoting the happiness of others. But if religious
considerations be left out of the question it is not true. If we do not
reason on the supposition of a future state, where is the motive? If we
do reason on that supposition, where is the discovery?

The Westminster Reviewer tells us that "we wish to see the science of
Government unsettled because we see no prospect of a settlement which
accords with our interests. " His angry eagerness to have questions
settled resembles that of a judge in one of Dryden's plays--the
Amphitryon, we think--who wishes to decide a cause after hearing only
one party, and, when he has been at last compelled to listen to the
statement of the defendant, flies into a passion, and exclaims, "There
now, sir! See what you have done. The case was quite clear a minute ago;
and you must come and puzzle it! " He is the zealot of a sect. We are
searchers after truth. He wishes to have the question settled. We wish
to have it sifted first. The querulous manner in which we have been
blamed for attacking Mr Mill's system, and propounding no system of
our own, reminds us of the horror with which that shallow dogmatist,
Epicurus, the worst parts of whose nonsense the Utilitarians have
attempted to revive, shrank from the keen and searching scepticism of
the second Academy.

It is not our fault that an experimental science of vast extent does not
admit of being settled by a short demonstration; that the subtilty
of nature, in the moral as in the physical world, triumphs over the
subtilty of syllogism.
The quack, who declares on affidavit that, by
using his pills and attending to his printed directions, hundreds who
had been dismissed incurable from the hospitals have renewed their youth
like the eagles, may, perhaps, think that Sir Henry Halford, when
he feels the pulses of patients, inquires about their symptoms, and
prescribes a different remedy to each, is unsettling the science of
medicine for the sake of a fee.

If, in the course of this controversy, we have refrained from expressing
any opinion respecting the political institutions of England, it is not
because we have not an opinion, or because we shrink from avowing
it. The Utilitarians, indeed, conscious that their boasted theory of
government would not bear investigation, were desirous to turn the
dispute about Mr Mill's Essay into a dispute about the Whig party,
rotten boroughs, unpaid magistrates, and ex-officio informations. When
we blamed them for talking nonsense, they cried out that they were
insulted for being reformers,--just as poor Ancient Pistol swore that
the scars which he had received from the cudgel of Fluellen were got
in the Gallia wars. We, however, did not think it desirable to mix up
political questions, about which the public mind is violently agitated,
with a great problem in moral philosophy.

Our notions about Government are not, however, altogether unsettled. We
have an opinion about parliamentary reform, though we have not arrived
at that opinion by the royal road which Mr Mill has opened for the
explorers of political science. As we are taking leave, probably for the
last time, of this controversy, we will state very concisely what our
doctrines are. On some future occasion we may, perhaps, explain and
defend them at length.

Our fervent wish, and we will add our sanguine hope, is that we may
see such a reform of the House of Commons as may render its votes
the express image of the opinion of the middle orders of Britain. A
pecuniary qualification we think absolutely necessary; and in settling
its amount, our object would be to draw the line in such a manner that
every decent farmer and shopkeeper might possess the elective franchise.
We should wish to see an end put to all the advantages which particular
forms of property possess over other forms, and particular portions of
property over other equal portions. And this would content us. Such a
reform would, according to Mr Mill, establish an aristocracy of wealth,
and leave the community without protection and exposed to all the evils
of unbridled power. Most willingly would we stake the whole controversy
between us on the success of the experiment which we propose.

*****




SADLER'S LAW OF POPULATION. (July 1830. )

"The Law of Population; a Treatise in Six Books, in Disproof
of the Superfecundity of Human Beings, and developing the
real Principle of their Increase". By Michael Thomas
Sadler, M. P. 2 volumes 8vo. London: 1830.

We did not expect a good book from Mr Sadler: and it is well that we did
not; for he has given us a very bad one. The matter of his treatise is
extraordinary; the manner more extraordinary still. His arrangement is
confused, his repetitions endless, his style everything which it ought
not to be. Instead of saying what he has to say with the perspicuity,
the precision, and the simplicity in which consists the eloquence proper
to scientific writing, he indulges without measure in vague, bombastic
declamation, made up of those fine things which boys of fifteen admire,
and which everybody, who is not destined to be a boy all his life, weeds
vigorously out of his compositions after five-and-twenty. That portion
of his two thick volumes which is not made up of statistical tables,
consists principally of ejaculations, apostrophes, metaphors,
similes,--all the worst of their respective kinds. His thoughts are
dressed up in this shabby finery with so much profusion and so little
discrimination, that they remind us of a company of wretched strolling
players, who have huddled on suits of ragged and faded tinsel, taken
from a common wardrobe, and fitting neither their persons nor their
parts; and who then exhibit themselves to the laughing and pitying
spectators, in a state of strutting, ranting, painted, gilded beggary.
"Oh, rare Daniels! " "Political economist, go and do thou likewise! "
"Hear, ye political economists and anti-populationists! " "Population, if
not proscribed and worried down by the Cerberean dogs of this wretched
and cruel system, really does press against the level of the means of
subsistence, and still elevating that level, it continues thus to
urge society through advancing stages, till at length the strong
and resistless hand of necessity presses the secret spring of human
prosperity, and the portals of Providence fly open, and disclose to the
enraptured gaze the promised land of contented and rewarded labour. "
These are specimens, taken at random, of Mr Sadler's eloquence. We could
easily multiply them; but our readers, we fear, are already inclined to
cry for mercy.

Much blank verse and much rhyme is also scattered through these volumes,
sometimes rightly quoted, sometimes wrongly,--sometimes good, sometimes
insufferable,--sometimes taken from Shakspeare, and sometimes, for aught
we know, Mr Sadler's own. "Let man," cries the philosopher, "take heed
how he rashly violates his trust;" and thereupon he breaks forth into
singing as follows:

"What myriads wait in destiny's dark womb,
Doubtful of life or an eternal tomb!
'Tis his to blot them from the book of fate,
Or, like a second Deity, create;
To dry the stream of being in its source,
Or bid it, widening, win its restless course;
While, earth and heaven replenishing, the flood
Rolls to its Ocean fount, and rests in God. "

If these lines are not Mr Sadler's, we heartily beg his pardon for our
suspicion--a suspicion which, we acknowledge, ought not to be lightly
entertained of any human being. We can only say that we never met with
them before, and that we do not much care how long it may be before we
meet with them, or with any others like them, again.

The spirit of this work is as bad as its style. We never met with a book
which so strongly indicated that the writer was in a good humour with
himself, and in a bad humour with everybody else; which contained so
much of that kind of reproach which is vulgarly said to be no slander,
and of that kind of praise which is vulgarly said to be no commendation.
Mr Malthus is attacked in language which it would be scarcely decent to
employ respecting Titus Oates. "Atrocious," "execrable," "blasphemous,"
and other epithets of the same kind, are poured forth against that able,
excellent, and honourable man, with a profusion which in the early part
of the work excites indignation, but after the first hundred pages,
produces mere weariness and nausea. In the preface, Mr Sadler excuses
himself on the plea of haste. Two-thirds of his book, he tells us, were
written in a few months. If any terms have escaped him which can be
construed into personal disrespect, he shall deeply regret that he had
not more time to revise them. We must inform him that the tone of his
book required a very different apology; and that a quarter of a year,
though it is a short time for a man to be engaged in writing a book, is
a very long time for a man to be in a passion.

The imputation of being in a passion Mr Sadler will not disclaim. His
is a theme, he tells us, on which "it were impious to be calm;" and he
boasts that, "instead of conforming to the candour of the present age,
he has imitated the honesty of preceding ones, in expressing himself
with the utmost plainness and freedom throughout. " If Mr Sadler really
wishes that the controversy about his new principle of population should
be carried on with all the license of the seventeenth century, we can
have no personal objections. We are quite as little afraid of a contest
in which quarter shall be neither given nor taken as he can be. But we
would advise him seriously to consider, before he publishes the promised
continuation of his work, whether he be not one of that class of writers
who stand peculiarly in need of the candour which he insults, and who
would have most to fear from that unsparing severity which he practises
and recommends.

There is only one excuse for the extreme acrimony with which this book
is written; and that excuse is but a bad one. Mr Sadler imagines that
the theory of Mr Malthus is inconsistent with Christianity, and even
with the purer forms of Deism. Now, even had this been the case, a
greater degree of mildness and self-command than Mr Sadler has shown
would have been becoming in a writer who had undertaken to defend the
religion of charity. But, in fact, the imputation which has been thrown
on Mr Malthus and his followers is so absurd as scarcely to deserve
an answer. As it appears, however, in almost every page of Mr Sadler's
book, we will say a few words respecting it.

Mr Sadler describes Mr Malthus's principle in the following words:--

"It pronounces that there exists an evil in the principle of population;
an evil, not accidental, but inherent; not of occasional occurrence,
but in perpetual operation; not light, transient, or mitigated, but
productive of miseries, compared with which all those inflicted by human
institutions, that is to say, by the weakness and wickedness of man,
however instigated, are 'light;' an evil, finally, for which there is
no remedy save one, which had been long overlooked, and which is now
enunciated in terms which evince anything rather than confidence. It is
a principle, moreover, pre-eminently bold, as well as 'clear. ' With a
presumption, to call it by no fitter name, of which it may be doubted
whether literature, heathen or Christian, furnishes a parallel, it
professes to trace this supposed evil to its source, 'the laws of
nature, which are those of God;' thereby implying, and indeed asserting,
that the law by which the Deity multiplies his offspring, and that by
which he makes provision for their sustentation, are different, and,
indeed, irreconcilable. "

"This theory," he adds, "in the plain apprehension of the many, lowers
the character of the Deity in that attribute, which, as Rousseau has
well observed, is the most essential to him, his goodness; or otherwise,
impugns his wisdom. "

Now nothing is more certain than that there is physical and moral
evil in the world. Whoever, therefore, believes, as we do most
firmly believe, in the goodness of God, must believe that there is
no incompatibility between the goodness of God and the existence
of physical and moral evil. If, then, the goodness of God be not
incompatible with the existence of physical and moral evil, on what
grounds does Mr Sadler maintain that the goodness of God is incompatible
with the law of population laid down by Mr Malthus?

Is there any difference between the particular form of evil which would
be produced by over-population, and other forms of evil which we know
to exist in the world? It is, says Mr Sadler, not a light or transient
evil, but a great and permanent evil. What then? The question of the
origin of evil is a question of ay or no,--not a question of more
or less. If any explanation can be found by which the slightest
inconvenience ever sustained by any sentient being can be reconciled
with the divine attribute of benevolence, that explanation will equally
apply to the most dreadful and extensive calamities that can ever
afflict the human race. The difficulty arises from an apparent
contradiction in terms; and that difficulty is as complete in the case
of a headache which lasts for an hour as in the case of a pestilence
which unpeoples an empire,--in the case of the gust which makes us
shiver for a moment as in the case of the hurricane in which an Armada
is cast away.

It is, according to Mr Sadler, an instance of presumption unparalleled
in literature, heathen or Christian, to trace an evil to "the laws of
nature, which are those of God," as its source. Is not hydrophobia
an evil? And is it not a law of nature that hydrophobia should be
communicated by the bite of a mad dog? Is not malaria an evil? And is it
not a law of nature that in particular situations the human frame should
be liable to malaria? We know that there is evil in the world. If it is
not to be traced to the laws of nature, how did it come into the world?
Is it supernatural? And, if we suppose it to be supernatural, is not the
difficulty of reconciling it with the divine attributes as great as if
we suppose it to be natural? Or, rather, what do the words natural and
supernatural mean when applied to the operations of the Supreme Mind?

Mr Sadler has attempted, in another part of his work, to meet these
obvious arguments, by a distinction without a difference.

"The scourges of human existence, as necessary regulators of the numbers
of mankind, it is also agreed by some, are not inconsistent with the
wisdom or benevolence of the Governor of the universe; though such think
that it is a mere after-concern to 'reconcile the undeniable state of
the fact to the attributes we assign to the Deity. ' 'The purpose of the
earthquake,' say they, 'the hurricane, the drought, or the famine, by
which thousands, and sometimes almost millions, of the human race, are
at once overwhelmed, or left the victims of lingering want, is certainly
inscrutable. ' How singular is it that a sophism like this, so false, as
a mere illustration, should pass for an argument, as it has long done!
The principle of population is declared to be naturally productive of
evils to mankind, and as having that constant and manifest tendency to
increase their numbers beyond the means of their subsistence, which has
produced the unhappy and disgusting consequences so often enumerated.
This is, then, its universal tendency or rule. But is there in Nature
the same constant tendency to these earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts,
and famines by which so many myriads, if not millions, are overwhelmed
or reduced at once to ruin? No; these awful events are strange
exceptions to the ordinary course of things; their visitations are
partial, and they occur at distant intervals of time. While Religion has
assigned to them a very solemn office, Philosophy readily refers them to
those great and benevolent principles of Nature by which the universe
is regulated. But were there a constantly operating tendency to these
calamitous occurrences; did we feel the earth beneath us tremulous, and
giving ceaseless and certain tokens of the coming catastrophe of
Nature; were the hurricane heard mustering its devastating powers, and
perpetually muttering around us; were the skies 'like brass,' without
a cloud to produce one genial drop to refresh the thirsty earth, and
famine, consequently, visibly on the approach; I say, would such a
state of things, as resulting from the constant laws of Nature, be
'reconcilable with the attributes we assign to the Deity,' or with any
attributes which in these inventive days could be assigned to him, so
as to represent him as anything but the tormenter, rather than the kind
benefactor, of his creatures? Life, in such a condition, would be like
the unceasingly threatened and miserable existence of Damocles at the
table of Dionysius, and the tyrant himself the worthy image of the Deity
of the anti-populationists. "

Surely this is wretched trifling. Is it on the number of bad harvests,
or of volcanic eruptions, that this great question depends? Mr Sadler's
piety, it seems, would be proof against one rainy summer, but would
be overcome by three or four in succession. On the coasts of the
Mediterranean, where earthquakes are rare, he would be an optimist.
South America would make him a sceptic, and Java a decided Manichean.
To say that religion assigns a solemn office to these visitations is
nothing to the purpose. Why was man so constituted as to need such
warnings? It is equally unmeaning to say that philosophy refers these
events to benevolent general laws of nature. In so far as the laws of
nature produce evil, they are clearly not benevolent. They may produce
much good. But why is this good mixed with evil? The most subtle and
powerful intellects have been labouring for centuries to solve these
difficulties. The true solution, we are inclined to think, is that which
has been rather suggested, than developed, by Paley and Butler. But
there is not one solution which will not apply quite as well to the
evils of over-population as to any other evil. Many excellent people
think that it is presumptuous to meddle with such high questions at all,
and that, though there doubtless is an explanation, our faculties are
not sufficiently enlarged to comprehend that explanation. This mode of
getting rid of the difficulty, again, will apply quite as well to the
evils of over-population as to any other evils. We are sure that those
who humbly confess their inability to expound the great enigma act more
rationally and more decorously than Mr Sadler, who tells us, with the
utmost confidence, which are the means and which the ends,--which the
exceptions and which the rules, in the government of the universe;--who
consents to bear a little evil without denying the divine benevolence,
but distinctly announces that a certain quantity of dry weather or
stormy weather would force him to regard the Deity as the tyrant of his
creatures.

The great discovery by which Mr Sadler has, as he conceives, vindicated
the ways of Providence is enounced with all the pomp of capital letters.
We must particularly beg that our readers will peruse it with attention.

"No one fact relative to the human species is more clearly ascertained,
whether by general observation or actual proof, than that their
fecundity varies in different communities and countries. The principle
which effects this variation, without the necessity of those cruel
and unnatural expedients so frequently adverted to, constitutes what I
presume to call THE LAW OF POPULATION; and that law may be thus briefly
enunciated:--


"THE PROLIFICNESS OF HUMAN BEINGS, OTHERWISE SIMILARLY CIRCUMSTANCED,
VARIES INVERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS.

"The preceding definition may be thus amplified and explained.
Premising, as a mere truism, that marriages under precisely similar
circumstances will, on the average, be equally fruitful everywhere,
I proceed to state, first, that the prolificness of a given number
of marriages will, all other circumstances being the same, vary
in proportion to the condensation of the population, so that that
prolificness shall be greatest where the numbers on an equal space are
the fewest, and, on the contrary, the smallest where those numbers are
the largest. "

Mr Sadler, at setting out, abuses Mr Malthus for enouncing his theory
in terms taken from the exact sciences. "Applied to the mensuration of
human fecundity," he tells us, "the most fallacious of all things is
geometrical demonstration;" and he again informs us that those "act an
irrational and irrelevant part who affect to measure the mighty depth
of God's mercies by their arithmetic, and to demonstrate, by their
geometrical ratios, that it is inadequate to receive and contain the
efflux of that fountain of life which is in Him. "

It appears, however, that it is not to the use of mathematical words,
but only to the use of those words in their right senses that Mr Sadler
objects. The law of inverse variation, or inverse proportion, is as much
a part of mathematical science as the law of geometric progression. The
only difference in this respect between Mr Malthus and Mr Sadler is,
that Mr Malthus knows what is meant by geometric progression, and
that Mr Sadler has not the faintest notion of what is meant by inverse
variation. Had he understood the proposition which he has enounced with
so much pomp, its ludicrous absurdity must at once have flashed on his
mind.

Let it be supposed that there is a tract in the back settlements of
America, or in New South Wales, equal in size to London, with only a
single couple, a man and his wife, living upon it. The population of
London, with its immediate suburbs, is now probably about a million and
a half. The average fecundity of a marriage in London is, as Mr Sadler
tells us 2. 35. How many children will the woman in the back settlements
bear according to Mr Sadler's theory? The solution of the problem is
easy. As the population in this tract in the back settlements is to
the population of London, so will be the number of children born from a
marriage in London to the number of children born from the marriage of
this couple in the back settlements. That is to say--

2 : 1,500,000 :: 2. 35 : 1,762,500.

The lady will have 1,762,500 children: a large "efflux of the fountain
of life," to borrow Mr Sadler's sonorous rhetoric, as the most
philoprogenitive parent could possibly desire.

But let us, instead of putting cases of our own, look at some of those
which Mr Sadler has brought forward in support of his theory. The
following table, he tells us, exhibits a striking proof of the truth of
his main position. It seems to us to prove only that Mr Sadler does not
know what inverse proportion means.

Countries Inhabitants on a Children to a
Square Mile, about Marriage

Cape of Good Hope 1 5. 48
North America 4 5. 22
Russia in Europe 23 4. 94
Denmark 73 4. 89
Prussia 100 4. 70
France 140 4. 22
England 160 3. 66

Is 1 to 160 as 3. 66 to 5. 48? If Mr Sadler's principle were just, the
number of children produced by a marriage at the Cape would be, not
5. 48, but very near 600. Or take America and France. Is 4 to 140 as
4. 22 to 5. 22? The number of births to a marriage in North America ought,
according to this proportion, to be about 150.

Mr Sadler states the law of population in England thus:--

"Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile,

From To Counties Number of births to 100 marriages

50 100 2 420
100 150 9 396
150 200 16 390
200 250 4 388
250 300 5 378
300 350 3 353
500 600 2 331
4000 and upwards 1 246

"Now, I think it quite reasonable to conclude, that, were there not
another document in existence relative to this subject, the facts thus
deduced from the census of England are fully sufficient to demonstrate
the position, that the fecundity of human beings varies inversely as
their numbers. How, I ask, can it be evaded? "

What, we ask, is there to evade? Is 246 to 420 as 50 to 4000? Is 331 to
396 as 100 to 500? If the law propounded by Mr Sadler were correct, the
births to a hundred marriages in the least populous part of England,
would be 246 x 4000 / 50, that is 19,680,--nearly two hundred children
to every mother. But we will not carry on these calculations. The
absurdity of Mr Sadler's proposition is so palpable that it is
unnecessary to select particular instances. Let us see what are the
extremes of population and fecundity in well-known countries. The space
which Mr Sadler generally takes is a square mile. The population at the
Cape of Good Hope is, according to him, one to the square mile. That
of London is two hundred thousand to the square mile. The number of
children at the Cape, Mr Sadler informs us, is 5. 48 to a marriage. In
London, he states it at 2. 35 to a marriage. Now how can that of which
all the variations lie between 2. 35 and 5. 48 vary, either directly or
inversely, as that which admits of all the variations between one and
two hundred thousand? Mr Sadler evidently does not know the meaning of
the word proportion. A million is a larger quantity than ten. A hundred
is a larger quantity than five. Mr Sadler thinks, therefore, that there
is no impropriety in saying that a hundred is to five as a million is to
ten, or in the inverse ratio of ten to a million. He proposes to prove
that the fecundity of marriages varies in inverse proportion to the
density of the population. But all that he attempts to prove is that,
while the population increases from one to a hundred and sixty on the
square mile, the fecundity will diminish from 5. 48 to 3. 66; and that
again, while the population increases from one hundred and sixty to two
hundred thousand on the square mile, the fecundity will diminish from
3. 66 to 2. 35.

The proposition which Mr Sadler enounces, without understanding the
words which he uses, would indeed, if it could be proved, set us at ease
as to the dangers of over-population. But it is, as we have shown, a
proposition so grossly absurd that it is difficult for any man to keep
his countenance while he repeats it. The utmost that Mr Sadler has
ever attempted to prove is this,--that the fecundity of the human
race diminishes as population becomes more condensed,--but that the
diminution of fecundity bears a very small ratio to the increase
of population,--so that, while the population on a square mile is
multiplied two hundred-thousand-fold, the fecundity decreases by little
more than one half.

Does this principle vindicate the honour of God? Does it hold out any
new hope or comfort to man? Not at all. We pledge ourselves to
show, with the utmost strictness of reasoning, from Mr Sadler's own
principles, and from facts of the most notorious description, that every
consequence which follows from the law of geometrical progression, laid
down by Mr Malthus, will follow from the law, miscalled a law of inverse
variation, which has been laid down by Mr Sadler.

London is the most thickly peopled spot of its size in the known world.
Therefore the fecundity of the population of London must, according
to Mr Sadler, be less than the fecundity of human beings living on
any other spot of equal size. Mr Sadler tells us, that "the ratios
of mortality are influenced by the different degrees in which the
population is condensated; and that, other circumstances being similar,
the relative number of deaths in a thinly-populated, or country
district, is less than that which takes place in towns, and in towns of
a moderate size less again than that which exists in large and populous
cities. " Therefore the mortality in London must, according to him, be
greater than in other places. But, though, according to Mr Sadler, the
fecundity is less in London than elsewhere, and though the mortality is
greater there than elsewhere, we find that even in London the number of
births greatly exceeds the number of deaths. During the ten years which
ended with 1820, there were fifty thousand more baptisms than burials
within the bills of mortality. It follows, therefore, that, even within
London itself, an increase of the population is taking place by internal
propagation.

Now, if the population of a place in which the fecundity is less and
the mortality greater than in other places still goes on increasing
by propagation, it follows that in other places the population will
increase, and increase still faster. There is clearly nothing in Mr
Sadler's boasted law of fecundity which will keep the population from
multiplying till the whole earth is as thick with human beings as St
Giles's parish. If Mr Sadler denies this, he must hold that, in places
less thickly peopled than London, marriages may be less fruitful than
in London, which is directly contrary to his own principles; or that in
places less thickly peopled than London, and similarly situated, people
will die faster than in London, which is again directly contrary to his
own principles. Now, if it follows, as it clearly does follow, from Mr
Sadler's own doctrines, that the human race might be stowed together
by three or four hundred to the acre, and might still, as far as the
principle of propagation is concerned, go on increasing, what advantage,
in a religious or moral point of view, has his theory over that of
Mr Malthus? The principle of Mr Malthus, says Mr Sadler, leads to
consequences of the most frightful description. Be it so. But do not
all these consequences spring equally from his own principle? Revealed
religion condemns Mr Malthus.