no doubt in the end bound up with the welfare of the
whole community, but the relation is infinitely subtle and indirect.
Moreover, it takes time to work itself out, and the evil that is done in
the present day may only bear fruit when the generation that has done it
has passed away. Thus, the direct and calculable benefit of the majority
may by no means coincide with the ultimate good of society as a whole;
and to suppose that the majority must, on grounds of self-interest,
govern in the interests of the community as a whole is in reality to
attribute to the mass of men full insight into problems which tax the
highest efforts of science and of statesmanship. Lastly, to suppose that
men are governed entirely by a sense of their interests is a many-sided
fallacy. Men are neither so intelligent nor so selfish. They are swayed
by emotion and by impulse, and both for good and for evil they will lend
enthusiastic support to courses of public policy from which, as
individuals, they have nothing to gain. To understand the real value of
democratic government, we shall have to probe far deeper into the
relations of the individual and society.

I turn lastly to the question of liberty. On Benthamite principles there
could be no question here of indefeasible individual right. There were
even, as we saw, possibilities of a thorough-going Socialism or of an
authoritarian paternalism in the Benthamite principle. But two great
considerations told in the opposite direction. One arose from the
circumstances of the day. Bentham, originally a man of somewhat
conservative temper, was driven into Radicalism comparatively late in
life by the indifference or hostility of the governing classes to his
schemes of reform. Government, as he saw it, was of the nature of a
close corporation with a vested interest hostile to the public weal, and
his work is penetrated by distrust of power as such. There was much in
the history of the time to justify his attitude. It was difficult at
that time to believe in an honest officialdom putting the commonwealth
above every personal or corporate interest, and reformers naturally
looked to individual initiative as the source of progress. Secondly,
and this was a more philosophic argument, the individual was supposed to
understand his own interest best, and as the common good was the sum of
individual interests, it followed that so far as every man was free to
seek his own good, the good of the greatest number w