tical Euclid--as a
deduction of the best system of government from this single principle
of responsibility--it was as grotesque as Macaulay asserted. Mill
might perhaps have met the criticism by lowering his claims as his son
suggests. He certainly managed to express his argument in such terms
that it has an uncomfortable appearance of being intended for a
scientific exposition.

This deserves notice because the position is characteristic of the
Utilitarians' method. Their appeals to experience always end by
absolute assertions. We shall find the same difficulty in their
economic inquiries. When accused, for example, of laying down absolute
principles in such cases, they reply that they are only speaking of
'tendencies,' and recognise the existence of 'checks.' They treat of
what would be, if certain forces acted without limit, as a necessary
step towards discovering what is when the limits exist. They appear to
their opponents to forget the limits in their practical conclusions.
This political argument is an instance of the same method. The genesis
of his theory is plain. Mill's 'government,' like Bentham's, is simply
the conception of legal 'sovereignty' transferred to the sphere of
politics. Mill's exposition is only distinguished from his master's by
the clearness with which he brings out the underlying assumptions. The
legal sovereign is omnipotent, for what he declares to be the law is
therefore the law. The law is his commands enforced by 'sanctions,'
and therefore by organised force. The motives for obedience are the
fear of the gallows on one side, and, on the other, the desire of
protection for life and property. Law, again, is the ultimate social
bond, and can be made at will by the sovereign. He thus becomes so
omnipotent that it is virtually assumed that he can even create
himself. Not only can the sovereign, once constituted, give commands
enforced by coercive sanctions upon any kind of conduct, but he can
determine his own constitution. He can at once, for example, create a
representative system in practice, when it has been discovered in
theory, and can by judicious regulations so distribute 'self-interest'
as to produce philanthropy and public spirit. Macaulay's answer really
makes a different assumption. He accepts the purely 'empirical' or
'rule of thumb' position. It is idle, he says, to ask what would
happen if there were no 'checks.' It is like leaving out the effect of
friction in a problem of me