But, on the whole, they might have chosen worse. They may as
well be Utilitarians as jockeys or dandies. And, though quibbling about
self-interest and motives, and objects of desire, and the greatest
happiness of the greatest number, is but a poor employment for a grown
man, it certainly hurts the health less than hard drinking and the
fortune less than high play; it is not much more laughable than
phrenology, and is immeasurably more humane than cock-fighting."

Macaulay inserted in the Edinburgh Review of March, 1829, an article
upon Mr Mill's Essay. He attacked the method with much vehemence; and,
to the end of his life, he never saw any ground for believing that in
this he had gone too far. But before long he felt that he had not spoken
of the author of the Essay with the respect due to so eminent a man. In
1833, he described Mr mill, during the debate on the India Bill of that
year, as a "gentleman extremely well acquainted with the affairs of our
Eastern Empire, a most valuable servant of the Company, and the author
of a history of India, which, though certainly not free from faults, is,
I think, on the whole, the greatest historical work which has appeared
in our language since that of Gibbon."

Almost immediately upon the appearance of the article in the Edinburgh
Review, an answer was published in the Westminster Review. It was
untruly attributed, in the newspapers of the day, to Mr Bentham himself.
Macaulay's answer to this appeared in the Edinburgh Review, June, 1829.
He wrote the answer under the belief that he was answering Mr Bentham,
and was undeceived in time only to add the postscript. The author of the
article in the Westminster Review had not perceived that the question
raised was not as to the truth or falsehood of the result at which Mr
Mill had arrived, but as to the soundness or unsoundness of the method
which he pursued; a misunderstanding at which Macaulay, while he
supposed the article to be the work of Mr Bentham, expressed much
surprise. The controversy soon became principally a dispute as to the
theory which was commonly known by the name of The Greatest Happiness
Principle. Another article in the Westminster Review followed; and
a surrejoinder by Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review of October, 1829.
Macaulay was irritated at what he conceived to be either extreme
dullness or gross unfairness on the part of his unknown antagonist, and
struck as hard as he could; and he struck very hard indeed.