“But there are many actions which, though useful to the community, legislation may not command. There are even many injurious actions which it may not forbid, although moral philosophy does so. Legislation is, in a word, a circle with the same centre as moral philosophy, but its circumference is smaller.” When law ceases to be available, there is nothing that society can do except be continually putting before the individual personally how greatly he contributes to his own welfare by furthering that of others. Bentham does not make it do this with educative guile as does Helvetius. Society appeals to his feeling for truth. It throws itself at his feet and entreats him for the sake of the general welfare to listen to the voice of reason. Thus the dry way in which Bentham writes about ethics has in it something peculiarly impressive, and explains the powerful influence which this [pg 079] eccentric member of the House which looks across the Park at Westminster has exercised all over the world through the individuals who were inspired by him. The most influential parts of his work are those in which he intensifies the seriousness of men and sharpens their outlook by leading them to reflect not only on the immediate but also on the more distant consequences of anything done or left undone, and, further, not only on the material consequences but on the spiritual ones. It does one good to note the courage with which this fanatic for utility ventures to represent material blessings as the foundation of spiritual ones. Bentham is one of the most powerful moralists who have ever appeared in the world, but his mistakes are as great as his insight. The latter is shown in this, that he conceives morality as a kind of enthusiasm. His mistake is that he thinks he must guarantee the rightness of this enthusiasm by making it nothing higher than a judgement of society which is taken over by the individual. This compels us to rank Bentham with Hobbes, Locke, and Helvetius, although in other respects he stands high above them. He, like them, makes morality arise outside the individual. He, like them, in order to find his explanation of the altruistic, puts out of action the ethical personality which is in man, and, to compensate for this, raises society to an ethical personality that he may then by a transmission of energy connect individuals with this central power-station. The difference is only that with the other commonplace moralists the individual is a marionette directed by society on ethical principles, whereas in Bentham he carries out with deep conviction the movements suggested to him.