BENTHAM.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Sta—As an old follower of BENTHAM, who have not yet turned into "a Cole. ridgian Tory," I beg your indulgence for some remarks on the article entitled "Bentham" in the last number of the Loudon and Westminster Review.
"The father of English innovation, both in doctrines and in institutions, is BENTHA : he is the great subversive, or, in the language of Continental philosophers, the great critical, thinker of his age and country. We consider this, however, to be not his highest title to fame. Were this all, he were to be ranked among the lowest order of the potentates of mind, the negative or de- structive philosophers."—The accuracy of this depends on the magnitude and importance of what there was to pull down, and what there was to build up. If the fact should be, for instance, that there was an enormous fortress of error to attack, strengthened by moss-grown prejudices and rooted interests, and defended with all the bitterness which such circumstances produce, the merit of the assault would appear to be a thing capable of measurement by itself, and perfectly independent of what, or whether any thing, should be established in its room, beyond the felicity of making rase camnpagne where there was formerly a stronghold of the enemy of mankind. There is therefore room for apprehen- sion, that the affected underrating of the "destructive philosopher," holds of some leaning towards the things to be destroyed. No man in common life makes such distinction. He who removes a disease, is held a benefactor ; and nobody ranks him "among the lowest order of the potentates" of medicine, because he did not superinduce the powers of a Hercules.
But " if we were asked to say, in the fewest possible words, what we conceive to be BENT II A M'S place among these great intellectual benefactors of humanity, we should say, he was not a great philosopher, but he was a great reformer in philosophy."—Will the world be persuaded there is wisdom in this ? Suppose it to be said of a physician, that he was not a great physi- cian, but he was a great reformer in the practice of medicine : would this pass current?
After quoting BERTH A m's glorious onslaughts upon the " Moral Sense," and Common Sense," and " Understanding," and " Eternal arid Immutable Rules of Right," and " Fitness of Things, Law of Nature, Law of Reason, Right Reason, Natural Justice, Natural Equity, Good Order," and the other wretched " serannel pipes of straw" on which his predecessors piped their feeble lay, " the while the hungry sheep look'd up and were not fed,"—the critic pronounces, " Few, we believe, are now of opinion that these phrases and similar ones have nothing more in them than BENT/IA 31 saw." Which points to the leading fact, that the critic has not comprehended what it was that BENTHAM taught. And the omission amounts to this—that he has failed to understand, that we had there the active principle, which put life into all these dry bones, and brought it within every man's power to derive aid, and use, and enjoyment, from what were previously at best but rattles, signifying nothing. He lusts after the cycles and epicycles of a gone. by age, and rejects as beneath his notice the discovery that the force which makes an apple fall, presents to these learned labyrinths a simple clue. He has no eyes for the great, concentrated,- he would have been among the despisers of Cour:K- IM, at the supper of the egg. There is no use in trying to depreciate BEN. THAM by representing his merit as consisting in having discovered "an im- proved instrument of investigation." He had laid down the one thing needful, the key, the what was wanted to open the door to knowledge, on subjects whore largest must be measured by what shall be done hereafter; he had exposed Z largest vista to the practical improvement of the human kind, which has been done by any individual for whom claim has not been made to inspiration ;_ee-- matter of fancy, or romance,—no flight of metaphysical inanity, nor titillating piece of "elegant literature" so called,—but a homely addition to man's steel( of every-day defences against fraud and wrong, in the shape of a criterion for determining what was wrong, and why. Like the cat in the fable, he ml ht
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have but one art, but it was an art surpassing in value the hundred maitre his comrade fox. Ile threw out one great idea ; not necessarily one which so. body else had ever thought of, (for what is there new under the sun?) bathe cod the man who effectually brought it into use, and made himself what maybe called the "working inventor.' Ile said, " When you want to know whether thing is good or evil, right or wrong, to be encouraged or prohibited, ask no is. ternal monitor,—it is only asking yourself your own opinion; consult no mow sense,—it is only a tinkling cymbal like the other ; care not a rush for the fitnessof things,—what do you mean by being fit? If you have not sold yourself to selfeleceit, go about the business like a reasonable anon II, and ask yourself what is the tendency of the action upon the happiness of yourself and fellow.creaturm And do not be cheated by taking an insulated act, or an act without the pro.
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bable consequences and chances that are appended to t,—though, if you liketo cheat yourself, you may ; but take a specimen of a class, and make an b mut conclusion of the effects that are to follow. Try thison what is called morality; if you like it there, try it on law, then home politics or, government, then' foreign. Have you got a clue, or have you not ? And might not you as well ask your internal monitor what it thought of the framework of the heavens, and set aside the Newtonian principle ?" Now this is what the critic has either not seen, or with owlish eyes. Ile wants to turn back to the beggarly elements of the old metaphysics,—rightly enough so called, as being something passing nature, and likely therefore to be out of reason. Those who have the Article before them, will judge whether this is borne out. Next week, something may be offered in coatinuatiou; and in the mean time, as the usurer in the French play begs to be called " NO. talist," dites, je coos prie, toujours, London and Westminster."
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