e principle had received its last
improvement; and gloried in the circumstance that the Westminster Review
had been selected as the organ of that improvement. Did it never occur
to him that one slight improvement to a doctrine is to prove it?

Mr Bentham has not demonstrated the "greatest happiness principle," as
now stated. He is far too wise a man to think of demonstrating any
such thing. In those sections of his "Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation", to which the Reviewer refers us in his note,
there is not a word of the kind. Mr Bentham says, most truly, that there
are no occasions in which a man has not SOME motives for consulting the
happiness of other men; and he proceeds to set forth what those motives
are--sympathy on all occasions, and the love of reputation on most
occasions. This is the very doctrine which we have been maintaining
against Mr Mill and the Westminster Reviewer. The principal charge which
we brought against Mr Mill was, that those motives to which Mr Bentham
ascribes so much influence were quite left out of consideration in his
theory. The Westminster Reviewer, in the very article now before us,
abuses us for saying, in the spirit, and almost in the words of Mr
Bentham, that "there is a certain check to the rapacity and cruelty
of men in their desire of the good opinion of others." But does this
principle, in which we fully agree with Mr Bentham, go the length of
the new "greatest happiness principle?" The question is, not whether men
have SOME motives for promoting the greatest happiness, but whether
the STRONGER motives be those which impel them to promote the greatest
happiness. That this would always be the case if men knew their own
worldly interests is the assertion of the Reviewer. As he expresses some
doubt whether Mr Bentham has demonstrated this or not, we would advise
him to set the point at rest by giving his own demonstration.

The Reviewer has not attempted to give a general confirmation of the
"greatest happiness principle;" but he has tried to prove that it holds
good in one or two particular cases. And even in those particular cases
he has utterly failed. A man, says he, who calculated the chances fairly
would perceive that it would be for his greatest happiness to abstain
from stealing; for a thief runs a greater risk of being hanged than an
honest man.

It would have been wise, we think, in the Westminster Reviewer, before
he entered on a discussion of