Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
General
Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English essays
who oppose his power or differ from his opinions he is pursuing "the
greatest happiness," than that he is doing as he would be done by. But
religion gives him a motive for doing as he would be done by: and Mr
Bentham furnishes him no motive to induce him to promote the general
happiness. If, on the other hand, Mr Bentham's principle mean only that
every man should pursue his own greatest happiness, he merely asserts
what everybody knows, and recommends what everybody does.
It is not upon this "greatest happiness principle" that the fame of
Mr Bentham will rest. He has not taught people to pursue their own
happiness; for that they always did. He has not taught them to promote
the happiness of others, at the expense of their own; for that they will
not and cannot do. But he has taught them HOW, in some most important
points, to promote their own happiness; and, if his school had emulated
him as successfully in this respect as in the trick of passing off
truisms for discoveries, the name of Benthamite would have been no word
for the scoffer. But few of those who consider themselves as in a more
especial manner his followers have anything in common with him but his
faults. The whole science of Jurisprudence is his. He has done much for
political economy; but we are not aware that in either department any
improvement has been made by members of his sect. He discovered truths;
all that THEY have done has been to make those truths unpopular. He
investigated the philosophy of law; he could teach them only to snarl at
lawyers.
We entertain no apprehensions of danger to the institutions of this
country from the Utilitarians. Our fears are of a different kind. We
dread the odium and discredit of their alliance. We wish to see a broad
and clear line drawn between the judicious friends of practical reform
and a sect which, having derived all its influence from the countenance
which they have imprudently bestowed upon it, hates them with the deadly
hatred of ingratitude. There is not, and we firmly believe that there
never was, in this country a party so unpopular. They have already made
the science of political economy--a science of vast importance to
the welfare of nations--an object of disgust to the majority of the
community. The question of parliamentary reform will share the same fate
if once an association be formed in the public mind between Reform and
Utilitarianism.
We bear no enmity to any member of the sect; and for Mr Bentham we
entertain very high admiration. We know that among his followers there
are some well-intentioned men, and some men of talents; but we cannot
say that we think the logic on which they pride themselves likely to
improve their heads, or the scheme of morality which they have adopted
likely to improve their hearts. Their theory of morals, however, well
deserves an article to itself; and perhaps, on some future occasion, we
may discuss it more fully than time and space at present allow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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