Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
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Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English essays
privileges of the peerage are now limited. The advantage is personal and
incommunicable. A nobleman can now no longer cover with his protection
every lackey who follows his heels, or every bully who draws in his
quarrel: and, highly as we respect the exalted rank which Mr Bentham
holds among the writers of our time, yet when, for the due maintenance
of literary police, we shall think it necessary to confute sophists,
or to bring pretenders to shame, we shall not depart from the ordinary
course of our proceedings because the offenders call themselves
Benthamites.
Whether Mr Mill has much reason to thank Mr Bentham for undertaking his
defence, our readers, when they have finished this article, will perhaps
be inclined to doubt. Great as Mr Bentham's talents are, he has, we
think, shown an undue confidence in them. He should have considered how
dangerous it is for any man, however eloquent and ingenious he may
be, to attack or defend a book without reading it: and we feel quite
convinced that Mr Bentham would never have written the article before
us if he had, before he began, perused our review with attention, and
compared it with Mr Mill's Essay.
He has utterly mistaken our object and meaning. He seems to think that
we have undertaken to set up some theory of government in opposition to
that of Mr Mill. But we distinctly disclaimed any such design. From
the beginning to the end of our article, there is not, as far as
we remember, a single sentence which, when fairly construed, can be
considered as indicating any such design. If such an expression can be
found, it has been dropped by inadvertence. Our object was to prove, not
that monarchy and aristocracy are good, but that Mr Mill had not proved
them to be bad; not that democracy is bad, but that Mr Mill had not
proved it to be good. The points in issue are these: whether the famous
Essay on Government be, as it has been called, a perfect solution of
the great political problem, or a series of sophisms and blunders; and
whether the sect which, while it glories in the precision of its logic,
extols this Essay as a masterpiece of demonstration be a sect deserving
of the respect or of the derision of mankind. These, we say, are the
issues; and on these we with full confidence put ourselves on the
country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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