n, and show the disadvantages of the old constables and
watchmen. Bentham, that is, gives an admirable method for settling
details of administrative and legislative machinery, and dealing with
particular cases when once the main principles of law and order are
established. Those principles, too, may depend upon 'utility,' but
utility must be taken in a wider sense when we have to deal with the
fundamental questions. We must consider the 'utility' of the whole
organisation, not the fitness of separate details. Finally, if Bentham
is weak in psychology and in sociology, he is clearly not satisfactory
in ethics. Morality is, according to him, on the same plane with law.
The difference is not in the sphere to which they apply, or in the end
to which they are directed; but solely in the 'sanction.' The legislator
uses threats of physical suffering; the moralist threats of 'popular'
disapproval. Either 'sanction' may be most applicable to a given case;
but the question is merely between different means to the same end under
varying conditions. This implies the 'external' character of Bentham's
morality, and explains his insistence upon the neutrality of motives. He
takes the average man to be a compound of certain instincts, and merely
seeks to regulate their action by supplying 'artificial tutelary
motives.' The 'man' is given; the play of his instincts, separately
neutral, makes his conduct more or less favourable to general happiness;
and the moralist and the legislator have both to correct his deviations
by supplying appropriate 'sanctions.' Bentham, therefore, is inclined to
ignore the intrinsic character of morality, or the dependence of a man's
morality upon the essential structure of his nature. He thinks of the
superficial play of forces, not of their intimate constitution. The man
is not to be changed in either case; only his circumstances. Such
defects no doubt diminish the value of Bentham's work. Yet, after all,
in his own sphere they are trifles. He did very well without philosophy.
However imperfect his system might be considered as a science or an
ultimate explanation of society and human nature, it was very much to
the point as an expression of downright common sense. Dumont's eulogy
seems to be fully deserved, when we contrast Bentham's theory of
punishment with the theories (if they deserve the name) of contemporary
legislators. His method involved a thoroughgoing examination of the
whole body of laws, and a