and utility.

The important point here, however, is to understand Bentham's implicit
assumptions. J. S. Mill, in criticising his master, points out very
forcibly the defects arising from Bentham's attitude to history. He
simply continued, as Mill thinks, the hostility with which the critical
or destructive school of the eighteenth century regarded their
ancestors. To the revolutionary party history was a record of crimes and
follies and of little else. The question will meet us again; and here it
is enough to ask what is the reason of his tacit implication of
Bentham's position. Bentham's whole aim, as I have tried to show, was to
be described as the construction of a science of legislation. The
science, again, was to be purely empirical. It was to rest throughout
upon the observation of facts. That aim--an admirable aim--runs through
his whole work and that of his successors. I have noticed, indeed, how
easily Bentham took for granted that his makeshift classification of
common motives amounted to a scientific psychology. A similar assumption
that a rough sketch of a science is the same thing as its definite
constitution is characteristic of the Utilitarians in general. A
scientific spirit is most desirable; but the Utilitarians took a very
short cut to scientific certainty. Though appealing to experience, they
reach formulae as absolute as any 'intuitionist' could desire. What is
the logical process implied? To constitute an empirical science is to
show that the difference between different phenomena is due simply to
'circumstances.' The explanation of the facts becomes sufficient when
the 'law' can be stated, as that of a unit of constant properties placed
in varying positions. This corresponds to the procedure in the physical
sciences, where the ultimate aim is to represent all laws as
corresponding to the changes of position of uniform atoms. In social and
political changes the goal is the same. J. S. Mill states in the end of
his _Autobiography_[457] that one main purpose of his writing was to
show that 'differences between individuals, races, or sexes' are due to
'differences in circumstances.' In fact, this is an aim so
characteristic from the beginning of the whole school, that it may be
put down almost as a primary postulate. It was not, indeed, definitely
formulated; but to 'explain' a social theorem was taken to be the same
thing as to show how differences of character or conduct could be
explained by 'circu