be described in one word as 'responsibility,'
or expressed in his leading rule, 'Minimise Confidence.'[447] 'All
government is in itself one vast evil.'[448] It consists in applying
evil to exclude worse evil. Even 'to reward is to punish,'[449] when
reward is given by government. The less government, then, the better;
but as governors are a necessary evil, they must be limited by every
possible device to the sole legitimate aim, and watched at every turn by
the all-seeing eye of public opinion. Every one must admit that this is
an application of a sound principle, and that one condition of good
government is the diffusion of universal responsibility. It must be
admitted, too, that Bentham's theory represents a vigorous embodiment
and unflinching application of doctrines which since his time have
spread and gained more general authority. Mill says that granting one
assumption, the Constitutional Code is 'admirable.'[450] That assumption
is that it is for the good of mankind to be under the absolute authority
of a majority. In other words, it would justify what Mill calls the
'despotism of public opinion.' To protest against that despotism was one
of the main purposes of Mill's political writings. How was it that the
disciple came to be in such direct opposition to his master? That
question cannot be answered till we have considered Mill's own position.
But I have now followed Bentham far enough to consider the more general
characteristics of his doctrine.

I have tried, in the first place, to show what was the course of
Bentham's own development; how his observation of certain legal abuses
led him to attempt the foundation of a science of jurisprudence; how the
difficulty of obtaining a hearing for his arguments led him to discover
the power of 'Judge and Co.'; how he found out that behind 'Judge and
Co.' were George III. and the base Sidmouth, and the whole band of
obstructors entrenched within the 'matchless constitution'; and how thus
his attack upon the abuses of the penal law led him to attack the whole
political framework of the country. I have also tried to show how
Bentham's development coincided with that of the English reformers
generally. They too began with attacking specific abuses. They were for
'reform, not revolution.' The constitution satisfied them in the main:
they boasted of the palladia of their liberties, 'trial by jury' and the
'Habeas Corpus' Act, and held Frenchmen to be frog-eating slaves in
d