the temptation of noting down every beautiful passage which arrests us in turning over the leaves of the volumes before us. We ought to recollect, too, that there are few to whom our pages are likely to come, who are not already familiar with their beauties; and, in fact, we have made these extracts, less with the presumptuous belief that we are introducing Mrs. Hemans for the first time to the knowledge or admiration of our readers, than from a desire of illustrating, by means of them, that singular felicity in the choice and

Watching the stars out by the bed of pain, With a pale cheek, and yet a brow inspir'd, And a true heart of hope, though hope be vain; Meekly to bear with wrong, to cheer decay, And, oh to Love through all things!-there-employment of her imagery, of which we

PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIND,

METAPHYSICS, AND JURISPRUDENCE.

I AM aware that the title prefixed to this head or Division of the present publication, is not likely to attract many readers; and, for this reason, I have put much less under it, than under any of the other divisions. But, having been at one time more addicted to the studies to which it relates than to any other-and still confessing to a certain partiality for them-I could not think of letting this collection of old speculations go forth to the world, without some specimen of those which once found so much favour in my eyes.

I will confess, too, that I am not unwilling to have it known that, so long ago as 1804, I adventured to break a spear (and I trust not quite ingloriously) in these perilous lists, with two such redoubted champions as Jeremy Bentham and Dugald Stewart, then in the maturity of their fame; and also to assail, with equal gallantry, what appeared to me the opposite errors of the two great Dogmatical schools of Priestley and of Reid.

I will venture also to add, that on looking back on what I have now reprinted of these early lucubrations, I cannot help indulging a fond, though probably delusive expectation, that the brief and familiar exposition I have there attempted, both of the fallacy of the Materialist theory, and of the very moderate practical value that can be assigned to Metaphysical dis cussions generally, and especially of the real shallowness and utter insignificance of the thorough-going Scepticism (even if unanswerable) to which they have been supposed to lead, may be found neither so tedious, nor so devoid of interest even to the general reader, as the mere announcement of the subjects might lead him to apprehend.

(April, 1804.)

Traités de Législation Civile et Pénale; précédés de Principes Généraux de Législation, et d'une Vue d'un Corps complet de Droit; terminés par un Essai sur l'influence des Tems et des Lieux relativement aux Lois. Par M. JÉRÉMIE BENTHAM, Jurisconsulte Anglois. Publiés en François par M. DUMONT de Genève, d'après les Manuscrits confiés par l'Auteur. 8vo. 3 tom. Paris, an X. 1802.

THE title-page of this work exhibits a curi- | While the author displayed, in many places, ous instance of the division of labour; and of the combinations that hold together the literary commonwealth of Europe. A living author consents to give his productions to the world in the language of a foreign editor; and the speculations of an English philosopher are published at Paris, under the direction of a redacteur from Geneva. This arrangement is not the most obvious or natural in the world; nor is it very flattering to the literature of this country; but we have no doubt that it was adopted for sufficient reasons.

great originality and accuracy of thinking, and gave proofs throughout of a very uncommon degree of courage, acuteness, and impartiality, it was easy to perceive that he was encumbered with the magnitude of his subject, and that his habits of discussion were but ill adapted to render it popular with the greater part of his readers. Though fully possessed of his subject, he scarcely ever appeared to be properly the master of it; and seemed evidently to move in his new career with great anxiety and great exertion. In the subordiIt is now about fifteen years since Mr. nate details of his work, he is often extremely Bentham first announced to the world his de- ingenious, clear, and satisfactory; but in the sign of composing a great work on the Prin- grouping and distribution of its several parts, ciples of morals and legislation. The specimen he is apparently irresolute or capricious; and which he then gave of his plan, and of his has multiplied and distinguished them by such abilities, was calculated, we think, to excite a profusion of divisions and subdivisions, that considerable expectation, and considerable the understanding is nearly as much bewil. alarm, in the reading part of the community.dered from the excessive labour and com

480

METAPHYSICS AND JURISPRUDENCE.

ит

plexity of the arrangement, as it could have | Bentham's system depends is, that Utility been from its absolute omission. In following and utility alone, is the criterion of right and out the discussions into which he is tempted wrong, and ought to be the sole object of the by every incidental suggestion, he is so anxi- legislator. This principle, he admits, has ous to fix a precise and appropriate principle often been suggested, and is familiarly recur of judgment, that he not only loses sight of red to both in action and deliberation ; but he the general scope of his performance, but maintains that it has never been followed out pushes his metaphysical analysis to a degree with sufficient steadiness and resolution, and of subtlety and minuteness that must prove that the necessity of assuming it as the exciurepulsive to the greater part of his readers. In sive test of our proceedings has never been the extent and the fineness of those specula- sufficiently understood. There are two printions, he sometimes appears to lose all recol- ciples, he alleges, that have been admitted to lection of his subject, and often seems to have a share of that moral authority which belongs tasked his ingenuity to weave snares for his of right to utility alone, and have exercised a understanding. control over the conduct and opinions of society, by which legislators have been very frequently misled. One of these he denomi nates the Ascetic principle, or that which enjoins the mortification of the senses as a duty, and proscribes their gratification as a sin; and the other, which has had a much more extensive influence, he calls the principle of Sympathy or Antipathy; under which name he comprehends all those systems which place the basis of morality in the indications of a moral Sense, or in the maxims of a rule of Right; or which, under any other form of expression, decide upon the propriety of human actions by any reference to internal feelings, and not solely on a consideration of their consequences.

The powers and the peculiarities which were thus indicated by the preliminary treatise, were certainly such as to justify some solicitude as to the execution of the principal work. While it was clear that it would be well worth reading, it was doubtful if it would be very fit for being read: and while it was certain that it would contain many admirable remarks, and much original reasoning, there was room for apprehending that the author's love of method and metaphysics might place his discoveries beyond the reach of ordinary students, and repel the curiosity which the importance of the subject was so likely to excite. Actuated probably, in part, by the consciousness of those propensities (which nearly disqualified him from being the editor of his own speculations), and still too busily occupied with the prosecution of his great work to attend to the nice finishing of its parts, Mr. Bentham, about six years ago, put into the hands of M. Dumont a large collection of manuscripts, containing the greater part of the reasonings and observations which he proposed to embody into his projected system. These materials, M. Dumont assures us, though neither arranged nor completed, were rather redundant than defective in quantity; and left nothing to the redacteur, but the occasional labour of selection, arrangement, and compression. This task he has performed, as to a considerable part of the papers entrusted to him, in the work now before us; and has certainly given a very fair specimen both of the merit of the original speculations, and of his own powers of expression and distribution. There are some passages, perhaps, into which a degree of levity has been introduced that does not harmonise with the general tone of the composition; and others in which we miss something of that richness of illustration and homely vigour of reasoning which delighted us in Mr. Bentham's original publications; but, in point of neatness and perspicuity, conciseness and precision, we have no sort of doubt that M. Dumont has been of the most essential service to his principal; and are inclined to suspect that, without this assistance, we should never have been able to give any account of his labours.*

The principle upon which the whole of Mr.

A considerable portion of the original paper is here omitted; and those parts only retained. which relate to the general principle and scope of the system.

As utility is thus assumed as the test and standard of action and approbation, and as it consists in procuring pleasure and avoiding pain, Mr. Bentham has thought it necessary, in this place, to introduce a catalogue of all the pleasures and pains of which he conceives man to be susceptible; since these, he alleges, are the elements of that moral calculation in which the wisdom and the duty of legislators and individuals must ultimately be found to consist. The simple pleasures of which man is susceptible are fourteen, it seems, in number; and are thus enumerated-1. pleasures of sense: 2. of wealth: 3. of dexterity: 4. of good character: 5. of friendship: 6. of power: 7. of piety: 8. of benevolence: 9. of malevolence: 10. of memory: 11. of imagination: 12. of hope: 13. of association: 14. of relief from pain. The pains, our readers will be happy to hear, are only eleven; and are almost exactly the counterpart of the pleasures that have now been enumerated. The construction of these catalogues, M. Dumont considers as by far the greatest improvement that has yet been made in the philosophy of human nature!

It is chiefly by the fear of pain that men are regulated in the choice of their deliberate actions; and Mr. Bentham finds that pain may be attached to particular actions in four different ways: 1. by nature: 2. by public opinion: 3. by positive enactment: and 4. by the doctrines of religion. Our institutions will be perfect when all these different sanctions are in harmony with each other.

But the most difficult part of our author's task remains. In order to make any use of those "elements of moral arithmetic," which are constituted, by the lists of our pleasures

and pains, it was evidently necessary to as- and therefore can afford no fixed standard for certain their relative Value,―to enable him to general approbation or enjoyment. Now we proceed in his legislative calculations with any cannot help thinking, that this fundamentai degree of assurance. Under this head, how-proposition is very defective, both in logical ever, we are only told that the value of a consistency, and in substantial truth. In the pleasure or a pain, considered in itself, de- first place, it seems very obvious that the pends, 1. upon its intensity, 2. upon its prox- principle of utility is liable to the very same imity, 3. upon its duration, and 4. upon its objections, on the force of which the authority certainty; and that, considered with a view of moral impressions has been so positively to its consequences, its value is further affect- denied. For how shall utility itself be recog ed, 1. by its fecundity, i. e. its tendency to nised, but by a feeling exactly similar to that produce other pleasures or pains; 2. by its which is stigmatised as capricious and unacpurity, i. e. its being unmixed with other sen- countable? How are pleasures and pains, and sations; and, 3. by the number of persons to the degrees and relative magnitude of pleawhom it may extend. These considerations, sures and pains, to be distinguished, but by however, the author justly admits to be still the feeling and experience of every individual? inadequate for his purpose; for, by what And what greater certainty can there be in mesus is the Intensity of any pain or pleasure the accuracy of such determinations, than in to be measured, and how, without a knowledge the results of other feelings no less generai of this, are we to proportion punishments to and distinguishable? If right and wrong, in temptations, or adjust the measures of recom- short, be not precisely the same to every inpense or indemnification? To solve this pro- dividual, neither are pleasure and pain; and blem, Mr. Bentham seems to have thought it if there be despotism and absurdity in impossufficient to recur to his favourite system of ing upon another, one's own impressions of Enumeration; and to have held nothing else wisdom and propriety, it cannot be just and necessary than to make out a fair catalogue reasonable to erect a standard of enjoyment, of "the circumstances by which the sensi- and a consequent rule of conduct, upon the bility is affected." These he divides into two narrow basis of our own measure of sensibility. branches the primary and the secondary. It is evident, therefore, that by assuming the The first he determines to be exactly fifteen, principle of utility, we do not get rid of the viz. temperament-health-strength-bodily risk of variable feeling; and that we are still imperfection-intelligence-strength of understanding-fortitude perseverance-dispositions-notions of honour-notions of religion-sympathies-antipathies - folly or derangement-fortune. The secondary are only nine, viz. sex-age-rank-education-pro

fession-climate-creed-government- -religious creed. By carefully attending to these twenty-four circumstances, Mr. Bentham is of opinion that we may be able to estimate the value of any particular pleasure or pain to an individual, with sufficient exactness; and to Judge of the comparative magnitude of crimes, and of the proportionate amount of pains and compensations.

Now the first remark that suggests itself is, that if there is little that is false or pernicious in this system, there is little that is either new or important. That laws were made to promote the general welfare of society, and that nothing should be enacted which has a different tendency, are truths that can scarcely claim the merit of novelty, or mark an epoch by the date of their promulgation; and we have not yet been able to discover that the vast technical apparatus here provided by Mr. Bentham can be of the smallest service in improving their practical application.

The basis of the whole system is the undivided sovereignty of the principle of Utility, and the necessity which there is for recurring strictly to it in every question of legislation. Moral feelings, it is admitted, will frequently be found to coincide with it; but they are on no account to be trusted to, till this coincidence has been verified. They are no better, in short, than sympathies and antipathies, mere private and unaccountable feelings, that may vary in the case of every individual;

liable to all the uncertainty that may be produced by this cause, under the influence of any other principle.

The truth is, however, that this uncertainty is in all cases of a very limited nature; and that the common impressions of morality, the vulgar distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice, are perfectly sufficient to direct the conduct of the individual, and the judgment of the legislator, for all useful purposes, without any reference to the nature or origin of those distinctions. In many respects, indeed, we conceive them to be much fitter for this purpose than Mr. Bentham's oracles of utility. In the first place, it is necessary to observe, that it is a very gross and unpardonable mistake to represent the notions of right and wrong, which are here in question, as depending altogether upon the private and capricious feelings of an individual. Certainly no mar was ever so arrogant or so foolish, as tc insis upon establishing his own individual persua sion as an infallible test of duty and wisdom for all the rest of the world. The moral feelings, of which Mr. Bentham would make so small account, are the feelings which observation has taught us to impute to all men, those in which, under every variety of cir cumstances, they are found pretty constantly to agree, and as to which the uniformity of their conclusions may be reasoned and reckoned upon, with almost as much security as in the case of their external perceptions. The existence of such feelings, and the uniformity with which they are excited in al men on the same occasions, are facts, in short, that admit of no dispute; and, in point of certainty and precision, are exactly on a footing with those perceptions of utility that can only

be relied on after they also have been verified | wards attempt, unsuccessfully, though with by a similar process of observation. Now, great labour, to repeat. They may be conwe are incumed to think, in opposition to Mr. pared, on this view of the matter, to those Bentham, that a legislator will proceed more acquired perceptions of sight by which the eye safely by following the indications of those is enabled to judge of distances; of the promoral distinctions as to which all men are cess of acquiring which we are equally unagreed, than by setting them altogether at conscious, and yet by which it is certain that defiance, and attending exclusively to those we are much more safely and commodiously perceptions of utility which, after all, he must guided, within the range of our ordinary occu collect from the same general agreement. pations, than we ever could be by any formal scientific calculations, founded on the faintness of the colouring, and the magnitude of the angle of vision, compared with the average tangible bulk of the kind of object in question.

The comparative value of such good and evil, we have already observed, can obviously be determined by feeling alone; so that the interference of technical and elaborate reason

It is now, we believe, universally admitted, that nothing can be generally the object of moral approbation, which does not tend, upon the whole, to the good of mankind; and we are not even disposed to dispute with Mr. Bentham, that the true source of this moral approbation is in all cases a perception or experience of what may be called utility in the action or object which excites it. The dif-ing, though it may well be supposed to disturb ference between us, however, is considerable; and it is precisely this-Mr. Bentham maintains, that in all cases we ought to disregard the presumptions arising from moral approbation, and by a resolute and scrupulous analysis, to get at the actual, naked utility upon which it is founded; and then, by the application of his new moral arithmetic, to determine its quantity, its composition, and its value; and, according to the result of this investigation, to regulate our moral approbation for the future. We, on the other hand, are inclined to hold, that those feelings, where they are uniform and decided, are by far the surest tests of the quantity and value of the utility by which they are suggested; and that if we discredit their report, and attempt to ascertain this value by any formal process of calculation or analysis, we desert a safe and natural standard, in pursuit of one for the construction of which we neither have, nor ever can have, any rules or materials. Á very few observations, we trust, will set this in a clear light. The amount, degree, or intensity of any pleasure or pain, is ascertained by feeling; and not determined by reason or reflection. These feelings however are transitory in their own nature, and, when they occur separately, and, as it were, individually, are not easily recalled with such precision as to enable us, upon recollection, to adjust their relative values. But when they present themselves in combinations, or in rapid succession, their relative magnitude or intensity is generally perceived by the mind without any exertion, and rather by a sort of immediate feeling, than in consequence of any intentional comparison: And when a particular combination or succession of such feelings is repeatedly or frequently suggested to the memory, the relative vame of all its parts is perceived with great readiness and rapidity, and the general result is fixed in the mind, without our being conscious of any act of reflection. In this way, moral maxims and impressions arise in the minds of all men, from an instinctive and involuntary valuation of the good and the evil which they have perceived to be connected with certain actions or habits; and those impressions may safely be taken for the just re-ferred from its effects. Bult of that valuation, which we may after

those perceptious upon the accuracy of which the determination must depend, cannot in any case be of the smallest assistance. Where the preponderance of good or evil is distinctly felt by all persons to whom a certain combination of feelings has been thus suggested, we have all the evidence for the reality of this preponderance that the nature of the subject will admit; and must try in vain to traverse that judgment, by any subsequent exertion of a faculty that has no jurisdiction in the cause. The established rules and impressions of morality, therefore, we consider as the grand recorded result of an infinite multitude of experiments upon human feeling and fortune, under every variety of circumstances; and as affording, therefore, by far the nearest approximation to a just standard of the good and the evil that human conduct is concerned with, which the nature of our faculties will allow. In endeavouring to correct or amend this general verdict of mankind, in any particular instance, we not only substi tute our own individual feelings for that large average which is implied in those moral impressions, which are universally prevalent, but obviously run the risk of omitting or mistaking some of the most important elements of the calculation. Every one at all accustomed to reflect upon the operations of his mind, must be conscious how difficult it is to retrace exactly those trains of thought which pass through the understanding almost without giving us any intimation of their existence, and how impossible it frequently is to repeat any process of thought, when we purpose to make it the subject of observation. The reason of this is, that our feelings are not in their natural state when we would thus make them the objects of study or analysis; and their force and direction are far better estimated, therefore, from the traces which they leave in their spontaneous visitations, than from any forced revocation of them for the purpose of being measured or compared. When the object itself is inaccessible, it is wisest to compute its magnitude from its shadow; where the cause cannot be directly examined, its qualities are most securely in

One of the most obvious consequences of