phy was to be also pledged to practical
applications of Utilitarianism. What, then, was the revelation made to
the Benthamites, and to what did it owe its influence? The central
doctrine is expressed in Bentham's famous formula: the test of right and
wrong is the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number.' There was
nothing new in this assertion. It only expresses the fact that Bentham
accepted one of the two alternatives which have commended themselves to
conflicting schools ever since ethical speculation was erected into a
separate department of thought. Moreover, the side which Bentham took
was, we may say, the winning side. The ordinary morality of the time was
Utilitarian in substance. Hutcheson had invented the sacred phrase: and
Hume had based his moral system upon 'utility.'[355] Bentham had
learned much from Helvetius the French freethinker, and had been
anticipated by Paley the English divine. The writings in which Bentham
deals explicitly with the general principles of Ethics would hardly
entitle him to a higher position than that of a disciple of Hume without
Hume's subtlety; or of Paley without Paley's singular gift of
exposition. Why, then, did Bentham's message come upon his disciples
with the force and freshness of a new revelation? Our answer must be in
general terms that Bentham founded not a doctrine but a method: and that
the doctrine which came to him simply as a general principle was in his
hands a potent instrument applied with most fruitful results to
questions of immediate practical interest.

Beyond the general principle of utility, therefore, we have to consider
the 'organon' constructed by him to give effect to a general principle
too vague to be applied in detail. The fullest account of this is
contained in the _Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation_. This work unfortunately is a fragment, but it gives his
doctrine vigorously and decisively, without losing itself in the minute
details which become wearisome in his later writings. Bentham intended
it as an introduction to a penal code; and his investigation sent him
back to more general problems. He found it necessary to settle the
relations of the penal code to the whole body of law; and to settle
these he had to consider the principles which underlie legislation in
general. He had thus, he says, to 'create a new science,' and then to
elaborate one department of the science. The 'introduction' would
contain prolegomena no