ly laughable
as the spectacle of an Utilitarian in a dilemma. What earthly good can
there be in a principle upon which no man will act until he is all-wise?
A certain most important doctrine, we are told, has been demonstrated so
clearly that it ought to be the foundation of the science of government.
And yet the whole frame of government is to be constituted exactly as
if this fundamental doctrine were false, and on the supposition that no
human being will ever act as if he believed it to be true!

The whole argument of the Utilitarians in favour of universal suffrage
proceeds on the supposition that even the rudest and most uneducated men
cannot, for any length of time, be deluded into acting against their
own true interest. Yet now they tell us that, in all aristocratical
communities, the higher and more educated class will, not occasionally,
but invariably, act against its own interest. Now, the only use of
proving anything, as far as we can see, is that people may believe it.
To say that a man does what he believes to be against his happiness is
a contradiction in terms. If, therefore, government and laws are to be
constituted on the supposition on which Mr Mill's Essay is founded,
that all individuals will, whenever they have power over others put into
their hands, act in opposition to the general happiness, then government
and laws must be constituted on the supposition that no individual
believes, or ever will believe, his own happiness to be identical with
the happiness of society. That is to say, government and laws are to
be constituted on the supposition that no human being will ever
be satisfied by Mr Bentham's proof of his "greatest happiness
principle,"--a supposition which may be true enough, but which says
little, we think, for the principle in question.

But where has this principle been demonstrated? We are curious, we
confess, to see this demonstration which is to change the face of the
world and yet is to convince nobody. The most amusing circumstance is
that the Westminster Reviewer himself does not seem to know whether
the principle has been demonstrated or not. "Mr Bentham," he says, "has
demonstrated it, or at all events has laid such foundations that there
is no trouble in demonstrating it." Surely it is rather strange that
such a matter should be left in doubt. The Reviewer proposed, in his
former article, a slight verbal emendation in the statement of the
principle; he then announced that th