the superstructure of legal ordinance; and he is at once
confronted by the difficult problem of distinguishing the sphere of
ethics from the province of law. Upon this vital question Mr. Stephen,
as an expert in ethics, gives a dissertation that is exceedingly acute
and instructive; and we may commend, in particular, his criticism of
the doctrine that the morality of an act depends upon its
consequences, not upon its motives. As he observes, this may be true,
with certain reserves, in law, where the business of the legislature
is to prohibit and punish acts that directly endanger the order and
security of a community. But 'the exclusion of motive justifiable in
law may take all meaning out of morality'; and yet nothing is more
complicated than the question of demarcating a clear frontier between
the two provinces. Mr. Stephen's examination of this question is the
more important because it involves the problem of regulating private
morals by public enactments; and also because the confusion of motives
with intentions lies at the bottom of much mischievous sophistry, for
some of the worst crimes in history have been suggested by plausible
motives, and have been defended on that ground. He shows that
Bentham's survey of the springs of human action was incomplete, that
he overstrained his formula to make it universally applicable, and
that he nevertheless gave a far-reaching impulse to clearer notions
and an effective advance in the simplification of legal procedure and
the codification of laws. As a moral philosophy, Bentham's system
appeared so arid and materialistic that its unpopularity has obscured
his real services. For he was the engineer who first led a scientific
attack up to the ramparts of legal chicanery, and made a breach
through which all subsequent reform found its entry.

The axiom that utility is the source of justice and equity is of very
ancient date, and indeed the word is sufficiently elastic to
comprehend every conceivable human motive; but no one before Bentham
had employed it so energetically as a lever to overturn ponderous
abuses, or had pointed his theory so directly against notorious facts.
On the other hand, since he despised and rejected historical studies,
he greatly miscalculated the binding strength of long usage and
possession. He forgot, what Hume had been careful to remember, that
whether men's reasoning on these subjects be right or wrong, the
conclusions have not really been reached by