ould be most
effectually realized by general freedom of choice. That there were
difficulties in reconciling self-interest with the general good was not
denied. But men like James Mill, who especially worked at this side of
the problem, held that they could be overcome by moral education.
Trained from childhood to associate the good of others with his own, a
man would come, he thought, to care for the happiness of others as for
the happiness of self. For, in the long run, the two things were
coincident. Particularly in a free economic system, as remarked above,
each individual, moving along the line of greatest personal profit,
would be found to fulfil the function of greatest profit to society. Let
this be understood, and we should have true social harmony based on the
spontaneous operation of personal interest enlightened by intelligence
and chastened by the discipline of unruly instinct.

Thus, though their starting-point was different, the Benthamites arrived
at practical results not notably divergent from those of the doctrine of
natural liberty; and, on the whole, the two influences worked together
in the formation of that school who in the reform period exercised so
notable an influence on English Liberalism, and to whose work we must
now turn.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] _Cf._ the preamble to the Declaration of the Rights of Man by the
French National Assembly in 1789. The Assembly lays down "the natural,
inalienable, and sacred rights of man," in order, among other things,
"that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive
power, being capable of being at every instant compared with the end of
every political institution, may be more respected accordingly."

[5] The comparison of the Declaration of the Assembly in 1789 with that
of the Convention in 1793 is full of interest, both for the points of
agreement and difference, but would require a lengthy examination. I
note one or two points in passing.

[6] Contrast 1793, Art. I: "The end of society is the common happiness.
Government is instituted to guarantee to man the enjoyment of his
natural and imprescriptible rights."

CHAPTER IV

'LAISSEZ-FAIRE'

The school of Cobden is affiliated in general outlook both to the
doctrine of natural liberty and to the discipline of Bentham. It shared
with the Benthamites the thoroughly practical attitude dear to the
English mind. It has much less to say of natural rights than the French
theorists. On t