Studies in Literature and History
Utilitarians, and in unconscious alliance, against the orthodox
economists, with the Tories, who, as we have said, have eventually
found their advantage in the democratic movement. Cobbett fought for
the cause of the agricultural labourer, trodden under foot by squires
and parsons. Owen believed that the grasping capitalist, with his
steam machinery, would further degrade and impoverish the working
classes. Godwin, who is merely mentioned by Mr. Stephen, was a
peaceful anarchist, who proposed 'to abolish the whole craft and
mystery of government,' to abandon coercion and rely upon just
reasoning, upon the enlightened assent of individuals to the payment
of taxes. They all embodied ideas that are incessantly fermenting in
some ardent minds, and that maintain a perceptible influence on
political controversies at the present day. Godwin agreed with the
Utilitarians that government is a bad thing in itself, but he went
beyond them in concluding that it is, or ought to be, unnecessary to
society. To both Radical and Socialist, Utilitarianism, with its
frigid philanthropy and its reliance on self-help, prudence, and free
competition for converting miserable masses into a healthy and moral
population, was the gospel of selfishness, invented for the salvation
of landlords and capitalists. Malthus was the heartless exponent of
natural laws that kept down multiplication by famine, while the rich
man fared sumptuously every day; and the Ricardians, with their
mechanical balancing of supply and demand, were mocking distress by
solemn formulas. It must be admitted that these sharp assailants hit
some palpable rifts in the Utilitarian armour of proof; and we know
that popular sentiment has since been compelling later economists to
take up much wider ground in defence of their scientific position.
The doctrines of Malthus, of Ricardo and of Ricardo's disciples are
subjected to a searching analysis by Mr. Stephen, who brings out their
limitations very effectively. Yet it is by no means easy, even under
our author's skilful guidance, to follow the Utilitarian track
through the fields of economy, philosophy, and theology, and to show
in what manner or degree it led up to the issues under discussion in
our own time. All these 'streams of tendency' have had their influence
on the main current and direction of contemporary politics, but they
cannot be measured or mapped out upon the scale of a review. And, in
regard to political economy, we may even venture to question whether
the earlier dogmatic theories now retain sufficient interest to
justify the space which, in this volume, has been devoted to a
scrutiny of them; for their methods, as well as their conclusions,
have now become to a certain extent obsolete. A strictly empirical
science must be continually changing with fresh data and a broader
outlook; it is always shifting under stress of new interests, changed
feelings, and unforeseen contingencies; it is very serviceable for the
exposure of errors, but its own demonstrations are in time proved to
be erroneous or inadequate. Moreover, to explain the ills that afflict
a society, and to declare them incurable except by patience and slow
alterative medicines, is often to render them intolerable; nor is it
of much practical importance to lay out, on hard scientific
principles, the methodical operation of causes and effects that have
always been understood in a rough experimental way.
'The truth that scarcity meant dearness was apparently well known
to Joseph in Egypt, and applied very skilfully for his purpose.
Economists have framed a theory of value which explains more
precisely the way in which this is brought about. A clear statement
may be valuable to psychologists; but for most purposes of
political economy Joseph's knowledge is sufficient,'
If Joseph had written a treatise on the agrarian tenures of Egypt he
might not have bought them up so easily at famine prices, and he
might have entangled himself in a discussion upon peasant properties.
The economist who makes an inductive demonstration of unalterable
natural laws and propensities may be likened to the scientific
legislator who undertakes to codify prevailing usages: he turns an
elastic custom, constantly modified in practice by needs and
sentiments, into an unbending statute, when the bare unvarnished
statement of the principle produces an outcry. Natural processes will
not bear calm philosophic explanations that are understood to imply
approval of them as cruel but inevitable; not even in such an
essentially moralistic argument as that of Butler's 'Analogy,' which
some have regarded as a plea of ambiguous advantage to the cause of
natural religion. Malthus, for example, proved undeniably the
pernicious consequences of reckless propagation; but he who forces a
great evil upon public attention is expected to find the practical
remedy; and Malthus had little to prescribe beyond a few palliative
measures and the expediency of self-restraint, while his proposal to
abolish the poor laws in the interest of pauperism was interpreted as
a recommendation that poor folk should be starved into prudential and
self-reliant habits. Malthus held, indeed, that the improvement of the
condition of the labouring classes should be considered as the main
interest of society. But he also thought that
'to improve their condition, it is essential to impress them with
the conviction that they can do much more for themselves than
others can do for them, and that the _only_ source of their
permanent improvement is the improvement of their moral and
religious habits. What government can do, therefore, is to maintain
such institutions as may strengthen the _vis medicatrix_, or desire
to better our condition, which poor laws had directly tended to
weaken.'
There is much wisdom to be found in these counsels; but good advice
rather excites than allays the ignorant impatience of acute suffering,
and popular opinion soon began to inquire whether the _vis medicatrix_
might not be administered in some more drastic form by the State. The
conception of a rational government superintending, without
interference, the slow evolution of morals, had a kind of
correspondence, in the religious sphere, with the doctrine of
pre-established harmonies so clearly ordained that to suggest any need
of further Divine interposition to readjust them occasionally was a
reflection upon the wisdom and foresight of Providence. But the stress
and exigencies of modern party politics has rendered this attitude
untenable for the temporal ruler.
The pure economists, however, prescribed moral remedies without
investigating the elements of morality. They settled the laws of
production and distribution as eliminated from the observation of
ordinary facts; they corrected errors and registered the mechanical
working of human desires and efforts. It is Mr. Stephen's plan,
throughout this book, to show the bearing of philosophical speculation
on practical conduct; and accordingly, after his chapter on Malthus
and the Ricardians, he turns back again to philosophy and ethics. His
clear and cogent exposition of the views and conclusions put forward
on these subjects by Thomas Brown, with the express approval of James
Mill, is an illustration of Coleridge's dictum regarding the
connection between abstract theories and political movements.
Admitting the connection, we may again observe that there is a certain
danger in stating the theories too scientifically. Neither morals nor
religion are much aided by digging down into their foundations. Yet
the logical constructor of a new system usually finds himself driven
by controversy into a discussion of ultimate ideas, though the
Utilitarians refused to be forced back into metaphysics. No professor
of philosophy, however, can altogether avoid asking himself what
underlies experience and the formation of beliefs; and Brown did his
best for the Utilitarians by defining Intuition as a belief that
passes analysis, a principle independent of human reasoning, which
'does not allow us to pass a single step beyond experience, but merely
authorises us to interpret experience.' It was James Mill's mission to
cut short and to simplify philosophical aberrations for his practical
purposes:
'As a publicist, a historian, and a busy official, he had not much
time to spare for purely philosophic reading. He was not a
professor in want of a system, but an energetic man of business,
wishing to strike at the root of superstitions to which his
political opponents appealed for support. He had heard of Kant, and
seen "what the poor man would be at".'
His own views are elaborated in his book on the _Analysis of the
Phenomena of the Human Mind_, for a close criticism of which we must
refer readers to Mr. Stephen's second volume. The connection of these
dissertations with the social and political ends of the Utilitarians
lies, it may be said briefly, in the support which a purely
experiential psychology gives to the doctrine that human character
depends on external circumstance, and that such vague terms as the
'moral sense' only disguise the true identity of rules of morality
with the considerations that can be shown to produce general
happiness. Whenever there appears to be a conflict between these rules
and considerations, utility is the only sure criterion. To the extreme
situations in which casuistry revels, as when a man is called upon to
sacrifice his life or his personal honour for his country's good, the
Utilitarian would apply this unfailing test inexorably; in such cases
a man ought to decide upon a calculation of the greatest happiness of
the majority. He does not, in fact, apply this reckoning; he may
possibly not have time, at the urgent moment, to work it out; his
heroism is inspired by the universal praise or blame that reward
self-devotion or punish shrinking from it, and thus render acts moral
or immoral by the habitual association of ideas. The martyr or patriot
does not, indeed, stop to calculate; he does not feel the subtle
egoism that is hidden in the desire for applause; he believes himself
to be acting with the perfect disinterestedness which can only be
accounted for by superficial reasoners on the assumption of some such
abstract notion as religion, moral sense, or duty. Since the behaviour
of mankind at large, therefore, is invariably guided by a remote or
proximate consideration of utility; since conduct depends upon
character, and character is shaped by external conditions and positive
sanctions, it is possible to frame, on utilitarian principles,
scientific rules of behaviour which can be powerfully, though
indirectly, promoted by legislation and a system of enlightened
polity. For morality, it is argued, can be materially assisted by
pointing to, or even providing, the serious consequences that are
inseparable from human misdeeds, by proving that pain or pleasure
follows different kinds of behaviour; while motives are so complex
that they can never be verified with certainty, and must therefore be
left out of account. This anatomy of the springs of action obviously
lays bare some truths, although they fit in much better with the
department of the legislator than of the moralist. As Mr. Stephen
forcibly shows, although the consideration of motive may fall very
seldom within the sphere of legislation, yet no theory which should
exclude its influence on the moral standard could be tolerated, since
the motive is of primary importance in our ethical judgment of
conduct. Nor has motive, as discriminated from intention, ever been
kept entirely outside the criminal law, notwithstanding the danger of
admitting, as an extenuation of some violent crime, that the offender