easures
of action are deliberately omitted, for Bentham pointedly gives the
'pains' of labour as a class without corresponding pleasure; and this,
though indicative, I think, of a very serious error, is characteristic
rather of his method of analysis than of his real estimate of pleasure.
Nobody could have found more pleasure than Bentham in intellectual
labour, but he separated the pleasure from the labour. He therefore
thought 'labour,' as such, a pure evil, and classified the pleasure as a
pleasure of 'curiosity.' But the main criticism is more remarkable. Mill
certainly held himself to be a sound Utilitarian; and yet he seems to be
condemning Bentham for consistent Utilitarianism. Bentham, by admitting
the 'conscience' into his simple springs of action, would have fallen
into the very circle from which he was struggling to emerge. If, in
fact, the pleasures of conscience are simple pleasures, we have the
objectionable 'moral sense' intruded as an ultimate factor of human
nature. To get rid of that 'fictitious entity' is precisely Bentham's
aim. The moral judgment is to be precisely equivalent to the judgment:
'this or that kind of conduct increases or diminishes the sum of human
pains or pleasures.' Once allow that among the pains and pleasures
themselves is an ultimate conscience--a faculty not constructed out of
independent pains and pleasures--and the system becomes a vicious
circle. Conscience on any really Utilitarian scheme must be a
derivative, not an ultimate, faculty. If, as Mill seems to say, the
omission is a blunder, Bentham's Utilitarianism at least must be an
erroneous system.

We have now our list both of pains and pleasures and of the general
modes of variation by which their value is to be measured. We must also
allow for the varying sensibilities of different persons. Bentham
accordingly gives a list of thirty-two 'circumstances influencing
sensibility.'[393] Human beings differ in constitution, character,
education, sex, race, and so forth, and in their degrees of sensibility
to all the various classes of pains and pleasures; the consideration of
these varieties is of the highest utility for the purposes of the judge
and the legislator.[394] The 'sanctions' will operate differently in
different cases. A blow will have different effects upon the sick and
upon the healthy; the same fine imposed upon the rich and the poor will
cause very different pains; and a law which is beneficent in Europe may
b