Autobiography
the interest of subjects is included in that of kings, and no more; and
that every reason which exists for giving the suffrage to anybody,
demands that it should not be withheld from women. This was also the
general opinion of the younger proselytes; and it is pleasant to be able
to say that Mr. Bentham, on this important point, was wholly on our side.
But though none of us, probably, agreed in every respect with my father,
his opinions, as I said before, were the principal element which gave
its colour and character to the little group of young men who were the
first propagators of what was afterwards called "Philosophic Radicalism."
Their mode of thinking was not characterized by Benthamism in any sense
which has relation to Bentham as a chief or guide, but rather by a
combination of Bentham's point of view with that of the modern political
economy, and with the Hartleian metaphysics. Malthus's population
principle was quite as much a banner, and point of union among us, as
any opinion specially belonging to Bentham. This great doctrine,
originally brought forward as an argument against the indefinite
improvability of human affairs, we took up with ardent zeal in the
contrary sense, as indicating the sole means of realizing that
improvability by securing full employment at high wages to the whole
labouring population through a voluntary restriction of the increase of
their numbers. The other leading characteristics of the creed, which we
held in common with my father, may be stated as follows:
In politics, an almost unbounded confidence in the efficacy of two
things: representative government, and complete freedom of discussion.
So complete was my father's reliance on the influence of reason over the
minds of mankind, whenever it is allowed to reach them, that he felt as
if all would be gained if the whole population were taught to read, if
all sorts of opinions were allowed to be addressed to them by word and
in writing, and if by means of the suffrage they could nominate a
legislature to give effect to the opinions they adopted. He thought that
when the legislature no longer represented a class interest, it would
aim at the general interest, honestly and with adequate wisdom; since
the people would be sufficiently under the guidance of educated
intelligence, to make in general a good choice of persons to represent
them, and having done so, to leave to those whom they had chosen a
liberal discretion. Accordingly aristocratic rule, the government of the
Few in any of its shapes, being in his eyes the only thing which stood
between mankind and an administration of their affairs by the best
wisdom to be found among them, was the object of his sternest
disapprobation, and a democratic suffrage the principal article of his
political creed, not on the ground of liberty, Rights of Man, or any of
the phrases, more or less significant, by which, up to that time,
democracy had usually been defended, but as the most essential of
"securities for good government." In this, too, he held fast only to
what he deemed essentials; he was comparatively indifferent to
monarchical or republican forms--far more so than Bentham, to whom a
king, in the character of "corrupter-general," appeared necessarily very
noxious. Next to aristocracy, an established church, or corporation of
priests, as being by position the great depravers of religion, and
interested in opposing the progress of the human mind, was the object of
his greatest detestation; though he disliked no clergyman personally who
did not deserve it, and was on terms of sincere friendship with several.
In ethics his moral feelings were energetic and rigid on all points
which he deemed important to human well being, while he was supremely
indifferent in opinion (though his indifference did not show itself in
personal conduct) to all those doctrines of the common morality, which
he thought had no foundation but in asceticism and priestcraft. He
looked forward, for example, to a considerable increase of freedom in
the relations between the sexes, though without pretending to define
exactly what would be, or ought to be, the precise conditions of that
freedom. This opinion was connected in him with no sensuality either of
a theoretical or of a practical kind. He anticipated, on the contrary,
as one of the beneficial effects of increased freedom, that the
imagination would no longer dwell upon the physical relation and its
adjuncts, and swell this into one of the principal objects of life; a
perversion of the imagination and feelings, which he regarded as one of
the deepest seated and most pervading evils in the human mind. In
psychology, his fundamental doctrine was the formation of all human
character by circumstances, through the universal Principle of
Association, and the consequent unlimited possibility of improving the
moral and intellectual condition of mankind by education. Of all his
doctrines none was more important than this, or needs more to be
insisted on; unfortunately there is none which is more contradictory to
the prevailing tendencies of speculation, both in his time and since.
These various opinions were seized on with youthful fanaticism by the
little knot of young men of whom I was one: and we put into them a
sectarian spirit, from which, in intention at least, my father was
wholly free. What we (or rather a phantom substituted in the place of
us) were sometimes, by a ridiculous exaggeration, called by others,
namely a "school," some of us for a time really hoped and aspired to be.
The French _philosophes_ of the eighteenth century were the examples we
sought to imitate, and we hoped to accomplish no less results. No one of
the set went to so great excesses in his boyish ambition as I did; which
might be shown by many particulars, were it not an useless waste of
space and time.
All this, however, is properly only the outside of our existence; or, at
least, the intellectual part alone, and no more than one side of that.
In attempting to penetrate inward, and give any indication of what we
were as human beings, I must be understood as speaking only of myself,
of whom alone I can speak from sufficient knowledge; and I do not
believe that the picture would suit any of my companions without many
and great modifications.
I conceive that the description so often given of a Benthamite, as a
mere reasoning machine, though extremely inapplicable to most of those
who have been designated by that title, was during two or three years of
my life not altogether untrue of me. It was perhaps as applicable to me
as it can well be to anyone just entering into life, to whom the common
objects of desire must in general have at least the attraction of
novelty. There is nothing very extraordinary in this fact: no youth of
the age I then was, can be expected to be more than one thing, and this
was the thing I happened to be. Ambition and desire of distinction I had
in abundance; and zeal for what I thought the good of mankind was my
strongest sentiment, mixing with and colouring all others. But my zeal
was as yet little else, at that period of my life, than zeal for
speculative opinions. It had not its root in genuine benevolence, or
sympathy with mankind; though these qualities held their due place in
my ethical standard. Nor was it connected with any high enthusiasm for
ideal nobleness. Yet of this feeling I was imaginatively very
susceptible; but there was at that time an intermission of its natural
aliment, poetical culture, while there was a superabundance of the
discipline antagonistic to it, that of mere logic and analysis. Add to
this that, as already mentioned, my father's teachings tended to the
undervaluing of feeling. It was not that he was himself cold-hearted or
insensible; I believe it was rather from the contrary quality; he
thought that feeling could take care of itself; that there was sure to
be enough of it if actions were properly cared about. Offended by the
frequency with which, in ethical and philosophical controversy, feeling
is made the ultimate reason and justification of conduct, instead of
being itself called on for a justification, while, in practice, actions
the effect of which on human happiness is mischievous, are defended as
being required by feeling, and the character of a person of feeling
obtains a credit for desert, which he thought only due to actions, he
had a real impatience of attributing praise to feeling, or of any but
the most sparing reference to it, either in the estimation of persons or
in the discussion of things. In addition to the influence which this
characteristic in him had on me and others, we found all the opinions to
which we attached most importance, constantly attacked on the ground of
feeling. Utility was denounced as cold calculation; political economy as
hard-hearted; anti-population doctrines as repulsive to the natural
feelings of mankind. We retorted by the word "sentimentality," which,
along with "declamation" and "vague generalities," served us as common
terms of opprobrium. Although we were generally in the right, as against
those who were opposed to us, the effect was that the cultivation of
feeling (except the feelings of public and private duty) was not in much
esteem among us, and had very little place in the thoughts of most of
us, myself in particular. What we principally thought of, was to alter
people's opinions; to make them believe according to evidence, and know
what was their real interest, which when they once knew, they would, we
thought, by the instrument of opinion, enforce a regard to it upon one
another. While fully recognising the superior excellence of unselfish
benevolence and love of justice, we did not expect the regeneration of
mankind from any direct action on those sentiments, but from the effect
of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish feelings. Although this
last is prodigiously important as a means of improvement in the hands of
those who are themselves impelled by nobler principles of action, I do
not believe that any one of the survivors of the Benthamites or
Utilitarians of that day now relies mainly upon it for the general
amendment of human conduct.
From this neglect both in theory and in practice of the cultivation of
feeling, naturally resulted, among other things, an undervaluing of
poetry, and of Imagination generally, as an element of human nature. It
is, or was, part of the popular notion of Benthamites, that they are
enemies of poetry: this was partly true of Bentham himself; he used to
say that "all poetry is misrepresentation": but in the sense in which he
said it, the same might have been said of all impressive speech; of all
representation or inculcation more oratorical in its character than a
sum in arithmetic. An article of Bingham's in the first number of the
_Westminster Review_, in which he offered as an explanation of something
which he disliked in Moore, that "Mr. Moore _is_ a poet, and therefore
is _not_ a reasoner," did a good deal to attach the notion of hating
poetry to the writers in the _Review_. But the truth was that many of us
were great readers of poetry; Bingham himself had been a writer of it,
while as regards me (and the same thing might be said of my father), the
correct statement would be, not that I disliked poetry, but that I was
theoretically indifferent to it. I disliked any sentiments in poetry
which I should have disliked in prose; and that included a great deal.
And I was wholly blind to its place in human culture, as a means of
educating the feelings. But I was always personally very susceptible to
some kinds of it. In the most sectarian period of my Benthamism, I
happened to look into Pope's _Essay on Man_, and, though every opinion
in it was contrary to mine, I well remember how powerfully it acted on