he overstrained his formula to make it universally applicable, and that he nevertheless gave a far-reaching impulse to clearer notions and an effective advance in the simplification of legal procedure and the codification of laws. As a moral philosophy, Bentham's system appeared so arid and materialistic that its unpopularity has obscured his real services. For he was the engineer who first led a scientific attack up to the ramparts of legal chicanery, and made a breach through which all subsequent reform found its entry. The axiom that utility is the source of justice and equity is of very ancient date, and indeed the word is sufficiently elastic to comprehend every conceivable human motive; but no one before Bentham had employed it so energetically as a lever to overturn ponderous abuses, or had pointed his theory so directly against notorious facts. On the other hand, since he despised and rejected historical studies, he greatly miscalculated the binding strength of long usage and possession. He forgot, what Hume had been careful to remember, that whether men's reasoning on these subjects be right or wrong, the conclusions have not really been reached by logic, but have grown up out of instincts, and correspond with certain immemorial needs and aspirations of humanity. Hume had sketched, before Bentham, his Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth; yet he begins by the warning that 'It is not with forms of government as with other artificial contrivances; where an old engine may be rejected if we can discover another more accurate and commodious ... the bulk of mankind' (he adds) 'being governed by authority, not by reason, and never attributing authority to anything that has not the recommendation of antiquity.'