So it undoubtedly was: but at the fame time such a defence, though not ironical, ought to be confidered as the fevereft fatire; for reafon will not allow that inhumanity fhould ufurp the place of mercy; nor that the diffolution of the tendereft bonds of nature fhould be confidered as a lefs fatal calamity to fociety than a collateral descent of the crown: no more will it allow that any government can be excufable which founds its judicial decifions on any other rules than those which eternal juftice has laid down; or has any other views in fuch cases than the adjudication of right, and the benefit of the community at large arifing from precedent and example. It would be a perverfion of justice to make the administration of it subservient to the intereft of the judges, or of any clafs of the fociety.

With refpect to the Athenian and British conftitutions, they differ fo widely, that one might be at a lofs to conceive how it could occur to any man to bring them into the fame point of view, except it were for the purpofe of fhewing how oppofite they were to each other, how greatly the latter ought to be preferred to the former, and in how fuperior a degree it is suited to the infular fituation of Great Britain; a fituation which Xe. nophon lamented that his country did not enjoy, as it would have fecured it from fudden invafions, and have enabled it to acquire the dominion of the fea, and to be the general commercial carrier of the world. Much of this, indeed, is done by the author of the appendix, which we have perufed with great attention, and certainly with no lefs pleasure: he is evidently a dispasfionate reafoner, above the narrow confideration of party, and apparently animated with a defire to preferve the conftitution, not through any fuperftitious regard for antiquity, but as the moft effectual medium of happiness to the people. Almoft throughout he led our feelings and our judgment captive to his powers of reafoning, to his elegance of language, and to his manlinefs of fentiment. We felt ourfelves difpofed in fome inftances to differ from him, but even then we were obliged to confefs that he argued with ingenuity and candour. One thing ftruck us as very clearly made out, that no general fyftem of government can be laid down fuited to every country in the world; and that the forms and powers of government must bend to circumftances, and be adapted to the fituation of the people with respect to their neighbours: fo that it may be morally neceffary that it fhould vary with times and feafons.

That our author thoroughly understands his subject, and that he is a fincere British conftitutionalift, anxious to maintain the refpective rights of the crown and of the fubject, and to guard, as much as he can, against the poffibility of facrificing one to the other, the following extract will ferve to fhew:

• In forming the theory of a mixed government, it is not difficult to lay down plans for checking the authority of a monarch, or an ariftocratical fenate; but how to create a democratic part of the legiflature, and give it a proper fhare of power, without making it allpowerful, without enabling it, on the first murmur of popular difcontent, to sweep away every barrier that could be oppofed to its force, is a difficulty that appears unfurmountable. No theory that my reafon, or even my imagination can form, will reach it. To place the fword of refiftance fo much in the power of the people as to be fufficiently within their reach when their rights are invaded, or even threatened seriously; and yet to place it fo out of their immediate grafp, as not to be ready for murder or faicide, during the temporary paroxyfms of popular fury, is a fyftem fo impoflible to plan, or even to conceive, that every fober legislator reafoning a priori, muit either abandon it as impracticable, or lament, if it could be obtained at all, the impoffibility of its duration. And yet this invaluable end is attained, in the English government, by the House of Commons, as it is now constituted, imperfect as its conftitution may appear.

• But here the theoretic objector, on the principles I have just mentioned, exclaims, if an imperfect reprefentation does fo much, what would a perfect and complete one do?' certainly not what the prefent does. The effect must be different; the queftion is, whether it would be better; or whether it may not be, from the apparent inequality of the reprefentation of the people in the British Houfe of Commons, that this fingular and defirable effect has been produced.' With respect to the idea of univerfal fuffrage, he thus expreffes himself:

An equal, and general reprefentation of the people, can only be established on one of these two principles. Either every perion, without diftinction of rank or property, must have a vote in the choice of reprefentatives; or only all perfons of a certain defcription, or who are poffeffed of a certain degree of property. The first muft open a wide door to venality and influence; for when the immediate furor of fancied equality, and real confufion and plunder, which must attend the fudden attainment of authority by the multitude, should fubfide, the indigent must be under the influence of those who employ, or those who will bribe them. The fecond would draw fo marked a line between the electors and the non-electors, as would almost amount to that between (I will not fay freemen, but) mafters and flaves. Any attempt to obviate the first objection, by intermediate ftages of election, like the plan in Hume's IDEA OF A PERFECT COMMON-WEALTH, (fomething refembling which was adopted in France,) would be attended with more ferious ill confequences; fince by taking away all immediate connection between the people at large and the legislative affembly of reprefentatives, it would entirely deftroy the refpantibility

of the latter."

On the inequality of reprefentation, which allows not the city of Westminster, for inftance, nor any great commercial city, a right of fending more members to parliament than the moft infignificant borough-thefe are his fentiments:

In regard to very large towns, fuch as Bristol, Liverpool, and above all, the metropolis; however defective their reprefentation may feem, it is amply rectified by the general weight of the monied intereft in the country, and by the number of opulent merchants and bankers, who though they may refide there, are returned by other fmaller cities and towns, and fometimes even by counties. Whoever will examine the lift of the House of Commons, with respect to this particulas, will not hesitate to pronounce that the metropolis, comprifing the cities of London and Westminster, has its full share of the reprefentation of the people of Great Britain.'

He

Towards the conclufion of this very able defence of the British conftitution, the author of the appendix enters on the subject of rotten boroughs, and the doctrine of equality. allows that the existence of the former cannot be defended for a moment, on any theory founded on the notion of a perfect reprefentation; yet he thinks it poffible that their removal might be attended with ferious evil. With refpect to the latter, we refer to the book.

ART. VIII. Mr. BENTHAM's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.

[Article concluded: fee Review for March, p. 305.] WE have feen, in our laft Review, in what manner Mr. B. has explained his own principle of morals and legiflation. He proceeds to obferve that, if this be a right principle by which we may be governed, and in all cafes, all other principles muft neceffarily be wrong; and to prove them fo, there needs no more, he adds, than just to fhew them to be what they are, that is, principles of which the dictates are in fome point or other different from the principle of utility. Accordingly he goes on to ftate, (which, he fays, is to confute,) the principles which are adverfe to that of utility. These he divides into, 1ft, the afcetic principle-which, he says, approves of actions as far as they tend to diminish happiness, and difapproves of them as far as they tend to augment it; which is the principle that has been adopted by the ambitious pride and vanity of ftoical philofophy, eager for diftinction above the vulgar, and by the abject apprehenfions of fuperftitious devotion, crouching under the dread of a merciless and malignant creator: 2dly, the principle of fympathy and antipathy; by which is meant that principle which approves or difapproves of certain actions, not on account of their tending to augment the happiness, nor yet becaufe of their tendency to diminish the happinefs, of the party whofe intereft is in queftion, but merely becaufe a man finds himfelf difpofed to approve or difapprove of them holding up that approbation or difapprobation as a fufficient reafon for itself, and difclaiming the neceffity of looking

Out

out for any extrinfic ground: 3dly, the theological principle, which profeffes to recur for the standard of right and wrong to the will of God: though this laft, fays Mr. Bentham, is not in fact a diftinct principle, but is nothing more nor less than one or other of the two former principles, or the principle of utility, prefenting itfeif under another fhape.

From the principle of fympathy and antipathy, fays Mr. Bentham, have flowed the various fyftems that have been formed concerning the ftandard of right and wrong.

account,' he adds, may ferve for all of them. They confift all of them in fo many contrivances for avoiding the obligation of appealing to any external ftandard, and for prevailing apon the reader to accept of the author's fentiment or opinion as a reafon for itfelf.' Of thefe different fyftems Mr. B. thus Speaks:

It is curious enough to obferve the variety of inventions men have hit upon, and the variety of phrafes they have brought forward, in order to conceal from the world, and, if poffible, from themselves, this very general and therefore very pardonable felf-fufficiency.

1. One man fays, he has a thing made on purpofe to tell him what is right and what is wrong; and that it is called a moral jenje: and then he goes to work at his eafe, and fays, fuch a thing is right, and fuch a thing is wrong-why? "because my moral fenfe tells me it is."

2. Another man comes and alters the phrafe: leaving out moral, and putting in common, in the room of it. He then tells you, that his common fenfe teaches him what is right and wrong, as furely as the other's moral fenfe did: meaning by common fenfe, a fenfe of fome kind or other, which, he fays, is poffeffed by all mankind; the fenfe of those, whofe fenfe is not the fame as the author's, being ftruck out of the account as not worth taking. This contrivance does better than the other; for a moral fenfe, being a new thing, a man may feel about him a good while without being able to find it out: but common fenfe is as old as the creation; and there is no man but would be ahamed to be thought not to have as much of it as his neighbours. It has another great advantage: by appearing to fhare power, it leffens envy for when a man gets up upon this ground, in order to anathematize those who differ from him, it is not by a fic volo fic jubeo, but by a velitis jubeatis.

3. Another man comes, and fays, that as to a moral fenfe indeed, he cannot find that he has any fuch thing: that however he has an underflanding, which will do quite as well. This understanding, he fays, is the ftandard of right and wrong: it tells him fo and fo. All good and wife men understand as he does: if other men's understandings differ in any point from his, fo much the worfe for them it is a fure fign they are either defective or corrupt.

4. Another man fays, that there is an eternal and immutable Rule of Right: that that rule of right dictates fo and fo: and then he begins giving you his fentiments upon any thing that comes uppermoft:

8.

and

and these fentiments (you are to take for granted) are so many branches of the eternal rule of right.

5. Another man, or perhaps the fame man (it's no matter) fays, that there are certain practices conformable, and others repugnant, to the Fitness of Things; and then he tells you, at his leifure, what practices are conformable and what repugnant: juft as he happens to like a practice or diflike it.

6. A great multitude of people are continually talking of the Law of Nature; and then they go on giving you their fentiments about what is right and what is wrong: and these fentiments, you are to underftand, are fo many chapters and fections of the Law of Nature.

7. Instead of the phrafe, Law of Nature, you have sometimes, Law of Reafon, Right Reafon, Natural Juftice, Natural Equity, Good Order. Any of them will do equally well. This latter is most used in politics. The three laft are much more tolerable than the others, because they do not very explicitly claim to be any thing more than phrases: they infift but feebly upon the being looked upon as fo many pofitive ftandards of themselves, and feem content to be taken, upon occasion, for phrases expreffive of the conformity of the thing in question to the proper ftandard, whatever that may be. On moft occafions, however, it will be better to fay utility: utility is clearer, as referring more explicitly to pain and pleasure.

8. We have one philofopher, who fays, there is no harm in any thing in the world but in telling a lie: and that if, for example, you were to murder your own father, this would only be a particular way of faying, he was not your father. Of course, when this philofopher fecs any thing that he does not like, he fays, it is a particular way of telling a lie. It is faying, that the act ought to be done, or may be done, when, in truth, it ought not to be done.

9. The fairest and openeft of them all is that fort of man who fpeaks out, and fays, I am of the number of the Elect; now God himself takes care to inform the Elect what is right: and that with fo good effect, that let them ftrive ever fo, they cannot help not only knowing it but practising it. If therefore a man wants to know what is right and what is wrong, he has nothing to do but to come to me. It is upon the principle of antipathy that fuch and fuch acts are often reprobated on the fcore of their being unnatural: the practice of expoling children, eftablished among the Greeks and Romans, was an unnatural practice. Unnatural, when it means any thing, means unfrequent and there it means fomething; although nothing to the prefent purpofe. But here it means no fuch thing: for the frequency of fuch acts is perhaps the great complaint. It therefore means nothing; nothing, I mean, which there is in the act itself. it can ferve to exprefs is, the difpofition of the person who is talking of it: the difpofition he is in to be angry at the thoughts of it. Does it merit his anger? Very likely it may: but whether it does or no is a queftion, which, to be anfwered rightly, can only be anfwered upon the principle of utility.

All

"Unnatural, is as good a word as moral fenfe, or common fenfe; and would be as good a foundation for a fyftem. Such an act is unnatural; that is, repugnant to nature: for I do not like to practife it;

and,