was a false alarm; he essayed it not. At length the imprisoned powers of rhetoric burst through the shallow mounds of torpid silence and reserve, and he remarked with equal acuteness of wit, novelty of invention, and depth of penetration, that “we had had no summer." Then, shocked at his own loquacity, he double-locked the door of his lips, "and word spoke never

JEREMY BENTHAM

In

[Jeremy Bentham was born in London on the 15th of February 1748. He was educated at Westminster School and Queen's College, Oxford. 1763 he became a member of Lincoln's Inn. In 1776 he published anonymously his first important work, the Fragment on Government. In 1789 he published his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. He devoted the remainder of his life chiefly to applying the principles of this work to the amendment of particular branches of the law. Westminster Review was founded in 1823 at his expense and by his disciples. Bentham died in London on the 6th of June 1832. A collected edition of his works with a memoir of his life, filling eleven volumes, was published in 1843 by John Bowring, his literary executor.]

The

He had himself a

He saw human He could analyse In spite of his

BENTHAM was essentially a man of science, not a man of letters. Even as a child he did not care for books which did not afford him facts. In later life he condemned poetry on the ground that it was a misrepresentation of reality. strong logical faculty, but a weak imagination. nature in the abstract, not in the concrete. motives, but he could not depict character. genuine benevolence he had too little sympathy with men to judge his own contemporaries aright or to penetrate the secrets of history. His only vigorous passions were the intellectual passions of study and controversy. He led a tranquil life unruffled by sudden changes of fortune, by great joys or by great sorrows. A man so limited by his nature and by his circumstances could never have been a great literary artist. Had Bentham adopted the profession of letters, he might have written some vigorous pamphlets or newspaper articles, but he would not have left behind him anything to interest later generations.

Bentham, however, did not care for literary distinction. The reform of law was the supreme object of his ambition. Most of his works, having been written with this object, are technical rather than literary in character. They are taken up with minute

investigations into the defects of English law, or with elaborate expositions of an ideal legal system. They are remarkably full, clear, and precise in statement; but they are not attractive; they are not even readable. They have no literary merits save those which belong to a good manual of medicine or of engineering. They are not works of art, and therefore do not come within the scope of literature properly so called.

It is only in discussing the first principles of politics and legislation that Bentham finds a subject-matter giving scope for literary treatment. Bentham had meditated long and carefully upon the ultimate problems which must be solved by the legislator or by those who furnish the legislator with ideas. He had reached definite conclusions respecting the origin of society, the object for which society exists, the proper function of government, and the real meaning of political liberty. He stated his conclusions in the Fragment on Government, the Principles of Morals and Legislation, and Anarchical Fallacies. These writ

ings, few and incomplete as they are, have exerted a considerable influence on philosophy and on politics. Upon these writings, together with one or two pamphlets such as the Defence of Usury, rests whatever literary reputation Bentham has attained.

Even in handling themes of general interest Bentham, it must be owned, is literary only by accident. He cannot pretend to the sparkling elegance of Montesquieu, the careless graces of Hume, or the rhetorical pomp of Burke. His highest merit is that he is simple and vigorous. He writes like a man who has fully considered his subject and who knows exactly what he wants to say. He writes without the least endeavour to be fine. He is too much engrossed with the task of communicating his thoughts to be desirous of calling attention to his eloquence. Thus, if he had no literary graces, he has no literary affectation. By dint of devotion to his subject he comes to have a style, not a great or a beautiful style, but a style eminently characteristic of the man, adequate to his ideas and stimulating to the earnest reader.

Bentham's literary power is most evident in controversial passages. His virtues and his failings alike fitted him for controversy. What he saw at all he saw with remarkable clearness. He wielded a rare power of deductive reasoning. He argued with admirable stringency from his own premises. He pounced with unerring keenness upon every fallacy of an opponent. Like most men who can argue well he argued with zest. His feelings

warmed and his spirits rose as he pulled to pieces propositions which he considered false and mischievous. On such occasions he attained to a very grim humour and even to a very austere eloquence. It would be difficult to name any English author who has wielded a greater destructive power. And it is only just to add that Bentham's ultimate aim was always constructive. He made war upon that which he regarded as error only in order to conquer room for that which he regarded as truth.

F. C. MONTAGUE.

THE POINT AT WHICH RESISTANCE BECOMES A

DUTY INCAPABLE OF DEFINITION

AFTER all these pains taken to inculcate unreserved submission, would any one have expected to see our author himself (Blackstone) among the most eager to excite men to disobedience ? and that, perhaps, upon the most frivolous pretences? in short, upon any pretence whatsoever ? Such, however, upon looking back a little, we shall find him. I say, amongst the most eager ; for other men, at least the most enlightened advocates for liberty, are content with leaving it to subjects to resist, for their own sakes, on the footing of permission: this will not content our author, but he must be forcing it upon them as a point of duty.

'Tis in a passage antecedent to the digression we are examining, but in the same section, that, speaking of the pretended law of nature, and of the law of revelation, "No human laws," he says, "should be suffered to contradict these." The expression is remarkable. It is not, that no human laws

should contradict them, but that no human laws should be suffered to contradict them. He then proceeds to give us an example. This example, one might think, would be such as should have the effect of softening the dangerous tendency of the rule: on the contrary, it is such as cannot but enhance it; and in the application of it to the rule, the substance of the latter is again repeated in still more explicit and energetic terms. “ Nay,” says he, speaking of the act he instances, “if any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it, we are bound to transgress that human law, or else we must offend both the natural and the divine."

The propriety of this dangerous maxim, so far as the divine law is concerned, is what I must refer to a future occasion for more particular consideration. As to the law of nature, if (as I trust it will appear) it be nothing but a phrase; if there be no other medium for proving any act to be an offence against it, than the mischievous tendency of such act; if there be no other