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Updated: May 15, 2025
Romilly's attempts to improve the criminal law began in 1808. Bentham's Works, x. p. 574. Brougham's Speeches , ii. 287-486. An interesting summary of the progress of law reforms and of Bentham's share in them is given in Sir R. K. Wilson's History of Modern English Law . Bentham's Works, x. 571. In Cambridge Pryme was the first professor in 1828, but had only the title without endowment.
To meet this objection, the words might be amended by substituting 'ought to be' for 'is. This, however, on Bentham's showing, at once introduces the conception of utility, and therefore leads to empirical considerations. The proposition, when laid down as a logical necessity, claims to be absolute.
This, again, is often the right point of view for immediate questions in which we may take for granted that the average individual is in fact constant; and, as I have said in regard to Bentham's legislative process, leads to very relevant and important, though not ultimate, questions. But there are certain other results which require to be noticed.
Herbert Spencer; and, as he observes, held on different grounds by Kant. Bentham's view, indicated by his criticism of this article in the 'Anarchical Fallacies, is therefore worth a moment's notice. The formula does not demand the absolute freedom which would condemn all coercion and all government; but it still seems to suggest that liberty, not utility, is the ultimate end.
Its place was taken by the utilitarian doctrine which Hume had outlined; and once Bentham's Fragment had begun to make its way, a new epoch opened in the history of political ideas. Locke might, indeed, claim that he had a part in this renaissance; but, once the influence of Burke had passed, it was to other gods men turned.
The moral difficulty which emerges is obvious. The Paley conception of the Deity is, in fact, coincident with Bentham's conception of the sovereign. He is simply an invisible sovereign, operating by tremendous sanctions. The sanctions are 'external, that is to say, pains and pleasures, annexed to conduct by the volition of the sovereign, not intrinsic consequences of the conduct itself.
How is it to be made responsible? The third question, he says, is the only one seriously considered by Bentham; and Bentham's answer, we have seen, leads to that 'tyranny of the majority' which was Mill's great stumbling-block. Why, then, does Bentham omit the other questions? or rather, how would he answer them? for he certainly assumes an answer.
Meanwhile the finance committee, appointed in 1797, heard evidence from Bentham's friend, Patrick Colquhoun, upon the Panopticon, and a report recommending it was proposed by R. Pole Carew, a friend of Samuel Bentham. Although this report was suppressed, the scheme apparently received an impetus.
In this journey I saw many things which were instructive to me, and acquired my first taste for natural scenery, in the elementary form of fondness for a "view." In the succeeding winter we moved into a house very near Mr. Bentham's, which my father rented from him, in Queen Square, Westminster. From 1814 to 1817 Mr. This sojourn was, I think, an important circumstance in my education.
Bentham's formula, therefore, diverges. All government, he holds, is an evil, because coercion implies pain. We must therefore minimise, though we cannot annihilate, government; but we must keep to utility as the sole test.
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