ers.

The Westminster Reviewer, in his former attack on us, laughed at us for
saying that a king or an aristocracy could not be easily satiated with
the pleasures of sense, and asked why the same course was not tried with
thieves. We were not a little surprised at so silly an objection from
the pen, as we imagined, of Mr Bentham. We returned, however, a very
simple answer. There is no limit to the number of thieves. Any man who
chooses can steal: but a man cannot become a member of the aristocracy
or a king whenever he chooses. To satiate one thief, is to tempt twenty
other people to steal. But by satiating one king or five hundred nobles
with bodily pleasures we do not produce more kings or more nobles. The
answer of the Westminster Reviewer we have quoted above; and it will
amply repay our readers for the trouble of examining it. We never read
any passage which indicated notions so vague and confused. The number
of the thieves, says our Utilitarian, is not limited. For there are the
dependants and friends of the king and of the nobles. Is it possible
that he should not perceive that this comes under a different head? The
bodily pleasures which a man in power dispenses among his creatures are
bodily pleasures as respects his creatures, no doubt. But the pleasure
which he derives from bestowing them is not a bodily pleasure. It is one
of those pleasures which belong to him as a reasoning and imaginative
being. No man of common understanding can have failed to perceive that,
when we said that a king or an aristocracy might easily be supplied to
satiety with sensual pleasures, we were speaking of sensual pleasures
directly enjoyed by themselves. But "it is impossible," says the
Reviewer, "to define what are corporal pleasures." Our brother would
indeed, we suspect, find it a difficult task; nor, if we are to judge
of his genius for classification from the specimen which immediately
follows, would we advise him to make the attempt. "A Duchess of
Cleveland was a corporal pleasure." And to this wise remark is appended
a note, setting forth that Charles the Second gave to the Duchess
of Cleveland the money which he ought to have spent on the war with
Holland. We scarcely know how to answer a man who unites so much
pretension to so much ignorance. There are, among the many Utilitarians
who talk about Hume, Condillac, and Hartley, a few who have read
those writers. Let the Reviewer ask one of these what he thinks on the
subject