wer over the rich minority. Is it possible to doubt to
what, on his own principles, such an arrangement must lead?

It may perhaps be said that, in the long run, it is for the interest of
the people that property should be secure, and that therefore they will
respect it. We answer thus:--It cannot be pretended that it is not for
the immediate interest of the people to plunder the rich. Therefore,
even if it were quite certain that, in the long run, the people would,
as a body, lose by doing so, it would not necessarily follow that the
fear of remote ill consequences would overcome the desire of immediate
acquisitions. Every individual might flatter himself that the punishment
would not fall on him. Mr Mill himself tells us, in his Essay on
Jurisprudence, that no quantity of evil which is remote and uncertain
will suffice to prevent crime.

But we are rather inclined to think that it would, on the whole, be
for the interest of the majority to plunder the rich. If so, the
Utilitarians will say, that the rich OUGHT to be plundered. We deny the
inference. For, in the first place, if the object of government be
the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the intensity of the
suffering which a measure inflicts must be taken into consideration,
as well as the number of the sufferers. In the next place, we have
to notice one most important distinction which Mr Mill has altogether
overlooked. Throughout his essay, he confounds the community with the
species. He talks of the greatest happiness of the greatest number:
but, when we examine his reasonings, we find that he thinks only of the
greatest number of a single generation.

Therefore, even if we were to concede that all those arguments of which
we have exposed the fallacy are unanswerable, we might still deny the
conclusion at which the essayist arrives. Even if we were to grant that
he had found out the form of government which is best for the majority
of the people now living on the face of the earth, we might still
without inconsistency maintain that form of government to be pernicious
to mankind. It would still be incumbent on Mr Mill to prove that the
interest of every generation is identical with the interest of all
succeeding generations. And how on his own principles he could do this
we are at a loss to conceive.

The case, indeed, is strictly analogous to that of an aristocratic
government. In an aristocracy, says Mr Mill, the few being invested with
the power