Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
General
Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English essays
But is it not possible that a king or an aristocracy may soon be
saturated with the objects of their desires, and may then protect the
community in the enjoyment of the rest? Mr Mill answers in the negative.
He proves, with great pomp, that every man desires to have the actions
of every other correspondent to his will. Others can be induced to
conform to our will only by motives derived from pleasure or from pain.
The infliction of pain is of course direct injury; and, even if it take
the milder course, in order to produce obedience by motives derived from
pleasure, the government must confer favours. But, as there is no limit
to its desire of obedience, there will be no limit to its disposition
to confer favours; and, as it can confer favours only by plundering the
people, there will be no limit to its disposition to plunder the people.
It is therefore not true that there is in the mind of a king, or in the
minds of an aristocracy, any point of saturation with the objects of
desire.
Mr Mill then proceeds to show that, as monarchical and oligarchical
governments can influence men by motives drawn from pain, as well as by
motives drawn from pleasure, they will carry their cruelty, as well as
their rapacity, to a frightful extent. As he seems greatly to admire his
own reasonings on this subject, we think it but fair to let him speak
for himself.
"The chain of inference in this case is close and strong to a most
unusual degree. A man desires that the actions of other men shall be
instantly and accurately correspondent to his will. He desires that the
actions of the greatest possible number shall be so. Terror is the grand
instrument. Terror can work only through assurance that evil will follow
any failure of conformity between the will and the actions willed. Every
failure must therefore be punished. As there are no bounds to the mind's
desire of its pleasure, there are, of course, no bounds to its desire of
perfection in the instruments of that pleasure. There are, therefore, no
bounds to its desire of exactness in the conformity between its will and
the actions willed; and by consequence to the strength of that terror
which is its procuring cause. Even the most minute failure must
be visited with the heaviest infliction; and as failure in extreme
exactness must frequently happen, the occasions of cruelty must be
incessant.
"We have thus arrived at several conclusions of the highest possible
importance. We have seen that the principle of human nature, upon which
the necessity of government is founded, the propensity of one man to
possess himself of the objects of desire at the cost of another, leads
on, by infallible sequence, where power over a community is attained,
and nothing checks, not only to that degree of plunder which leaves the
members (excepting always the recipients and instruments of the plunder)
the bare means of subsistence, but to that degree of cruelty which is
necessary to keep in existence the most intense terrors."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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