amental axiom' is that 'the greatest happiness of the greatest
number is the measure of right and wrong.'[219] Bentham himself[220]
attributes the authorship of the phrase to Beccaria or Priestley. The
general order of thought to which this theory belongs was of course not
the property of any special writer or any particular period. Here I need
only observe that this embodiment of the general doctrine of utility or
morality had been struck out by Hutcheson in the attempt (as his title
says) 'to introduce a mathematical calculation on subjects of morality.'
This defines the exact reason which made it acceptable to Bentham. For
the vague reference to utility which appears in Hume and other writers
of his school, he substituted a formula, the terms of which suggest the
possibility of an accurate quantitative comparison of different sums of
happiness. In Bentham's mind the difference between this and the more
general formula was like the difference between the statement that the
planets gravitate towards the sun, and the more precise statement that
the law of gravitation varies inversely as the square of the distance.
Bentham hoped for no less an achievement than to become the Newton of
the moral world.

Bentham, after leaving Oxford, took chambers in Lincoln's Inn. His
father on his second marriage had settled some property upon him, which
brought in some L90 a year. He had to live like a gentleman upon this,
and to give four guineas a year to the laundress, four to his barber,
and two to his shoeblack. In spite of Jeremy's deviation from the path
of preferment, the two were on friendly terms, and when the hopes of the
son's professional success grew faint, the father showed sympathy with
his literary undertakings. Jeremy visited Paris in 1770, but made few
acquaintances, though he was already regarded as a 'philosopher.' In
1778 he was in correspondence with d'Alembert, the abbe Morellet, and
other philanthropic philosophers, but it does not appear at what time
this connection began.[221] He translated Voltaire's _Taureau
Blanc_[222]--a story which used to 'convulse him with laughter.' A
reference to it will show that Bentham by this time took the Voltairean
view of the Old Testament. Bentham, however, was still on the side of
the Tories. His first publication was a defence of Lord Mansfield in
1770 against attacks arising out of the prosecution of Woodfall for
publishing Junius's letter to the king. This defence, containe