exaggeration, that they who
sat in darkness had seen a great light. The mists in which mankind
had jousted against each other were swept away, as when the sun of
astronomical science arose in the full development of the principle of
gravitation. If the object of legislation was the greatest happiness,
MORALITY was the promotion of the same end by the conduct of the
individual; and by analogy, the happiness of the world was the morality
of nations.

"...All the sublime obscurities, which had haunted the mind of man from
the first formation of society,--the phantoms whose steps had been on
earth, and their heads among the clouds--marshalled themselves at the
sound of this new principle of connection and of union, and stood a
regulated band, where all was order, symmetry, and force. What men had
struggled for and bled, while they saw it but as through a glass darkly,
was made the object of substantial knowledge and lively apprehension.
The bones of sages and of patriots stirred within their tombs, that what
they dimly saw and followed had become the world's common heritage. And
the great result was wrought by no supernatural means, nor produced
by any unparallelable concatenation of events. It was foretold by no
oracles, and ushered by no portents; but was brought about by the quiet
and reiterated exercise of God's first gift of common sense."

Mr Bentham's discovery does not, as we think we shall be able to show,
approach in importance to that of gravitation, to which he compares it.
At all events, Mr Bentham seems to us to act much as Sir Isaac Newton
would have done if he had gone about boasting that he was the first
person who taught bricklayers not to jump off scaffolds and break their
legs.

Does Mr Bentham profess to hold out any new motive which may induce men
to promote the happiness of the species to which they belong? Not at
all. He distinctly admits that, if he is asked why government should
attempt to produce the greatest possible happiness, he can give no
answer.

"The real answer," says he, "appeared to be, that men at large OUGHT not
to allow a government to afflict them with more evil or less good
than they can help. What A GOVERNMENT ought to do is a mysterious and
searching question, which those may answer who know what it means; but
what other men ought to do is a question of no mystery at all. The
word OUGHT, if it means anything, must have reference to some kind of
interest or motives; and what