pose of his whole system was to carry
out that doctrine thoroughly. His view is given vigorously in the
'Anarchical Fallacies'--a minute examination of the French Declaration
of Rights in 1791. His argument is of merciless length, and occasionally
so minute as to sound like quibbling. The pith, however, is clear
enough. 'All men are born and remain free and equal in respect of
rights' are the first words of the Declaration. Nobody is 'born free,'
retorts Bentham. Everybody is born, and long remains, a helpless child.
All men born free! Absurd and miserable nonsense! Why, you are
complaining in the same breath that nearly everybody is a slave.[451] 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. Therefore it implies that all authority is bad;
the authority, for example, of parent over child, or of husband over
wife; and moreover, that all laws to the contrary are _ipso facto_ void.
That is why it is 'anarchical.' It supposes a 'natural right,' not only
as suggesting reasons for proposed alterations of the legal right, but
as actually annihilating the right and therefore destroying all
government. '_Natural rights_,' says Bentham,[452] is simple nonsense;
natural and imprescriptible rights 'rhetorical nonsense--nonsense upon
stilts.' For 'natural right' substitute utility, and you have, of
course, a reasonable principle, because an appeal to experience. But lay
down 'liberty' as an absolute right and you annihilate law, for every
law supposes coercion. One man gets liberty simply by restricting the
liberty of others.[453] What Bentham substantially says, therefore, is
that on this version absolute rights of individuals could mean nothing
but anarchy; or that no law can be defended except by a reference to
facts, and therefore to 'utility.'

One answer might be that the demand is not for absolute liberty, but for
as much liberty as is compatible with equal liberty for all. The fourth
article of the Declaration says: 'Liberty consists in being able to do
that which is not hurtful to another, and therefore the exercise of the
natural rights of each man has no other bounds than those which ensure
to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.'
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