Carlile, who was then
'safe in Dorchester gaol.' No legal notice was taken of 'Philip
Beauchamp.' The reason may have been that the book excited very little
attention in general. Yet it is probably as forcible an attack as has
often been written upon the popular theology. The name of 'Philip
Beauchamp' covered a combination of Bentham and George Grote.[610] The
book, therefore, represents the view of representative Utilitarians of
the first and third generation, and clearly expressed the real
opinions of the whole party. In his posthumous essays J. S. Mill
speaks of it as the only explicit discussion known to him of the
question of the utility, as distinguished from the question of the
truth, of religion. Obviously, it was desirable to apply the universal
test to religious belief, and this very pithy and condensed statement
shows the result.

A short summary may indicate the essence of the argument. It is only
necessary to observe that the phrase 'natural religion' is part of the
disguise. It enables the author to avoid an explicit attack upon
revelation; but it is superabundantly obvious that the word 'natural'
is superfluous. Revelation is really a fiction, and all religions are
'natural.' A religion is called a 'superstition,' as 'Philip
Beauchamp' remarks at starting, when its results are thought to be
bad; and allowed to be a religion only when they are thought to be
good.[611] That device covers the familiar fallacy of distinguishing
between uses and abuses, and, upon that pretence, omitting to take bad
consequences into account. We must avoid it by defining religion and
then tracing all the consequences, good or bad. Religion is
accordingly taken to mean the belief in the existence of 'an Almighty
Being, by whom pains and pleasures will be dispensed to mankind during
an infinite and future state of existence.' The definition is already
characteristic. 'Religion' may be used in a far wider sense,
corresponding to a philosophy of the universe, whether that
philosophy does or does not include this particular doctrine. But
'Philip Beauchamp's' assumption is convenient because it gives a
rational reasoning to the problem of utility. Religion is taken to be
something adventitious or superimposed upon other beliefs, and we can
therefore intelligibly ask whether it does good or harm. Taking this
definition for granted, let us consider the results.

The first point is that we are of necessity in absolute ignorance as
t