be enlightened public opinion. And he
was apparently convinced, without misgivings, that a model government,
framed logically upon that common sense which is a public property,
could be introduced and enforced under popular sanction as easily as
new regulations for an ill-managed gaol. He was fully prepared to make
liberal allowance, in framing his constitution, for the different
needs, circumstances, and habits of communities; he was quite aware
that precisely the same legislation would not suit England and India;
but he believed national circumstance and character to be extensively
modifiable by manifestly useful institutions, and he was ready to
begin the operation at once, 'to legislate for Hindostan as well as
for his own parish, and to make codes not only for England, Spain, and
Russia, but also for Morocco.'

Mr. Stephen has no difficulty in exposing the shortcomings and
inadequacy of these doctrines. But he is writing the history of
certain political ideas; so his main object is to show how such ideas
are formed, the course they have followed, and their influence upon
thought and action up to the present day. To trace the links and
continuity of ideas is to analyse their elements, and to show the
impress that they received from external circumstance, permanent or
temporary; it is an important method in the science of politics. Upon
the empiricism of English philosophy in the eighteenth century Bentham
constructed a Theory of Morals that purported to rest exclusively on
facts ascertained and verifiable, with happiness as our being's end
and aim, with pain and pleasure as the ultimate principles of conduct;
and upon this foundation he proceeded to build up his system of
politics and legislation. Any attempt to derive morality from other
sources, or to measure it by other standards, he denounced as
arbitrary and misleading; he threw aside metaphysics, and therefore
theology, as illusory. The exclusive appeal to experience, to plain
reasoning from the evidence of our senses, from actual observation of
human propensities, was sufficient for his purposes, and tallied with
his designs as a practical reformer. In these views he was a disciple
of Hume, whose influence has surreptitiously percolated all modern
thought, and his unintentional allies were the teachers of Natural
religion, with Paley as its principal exponent. Having thus defined
and explained the basis of ethical philosophy, the Utilitarian has to
build up