o quote history. No
man of common sense, however ignorant he may be of books, can be imposed
on by Mr Mill's argument; because no man of common sense can live among
his fellow-creatures for a day without seeing innumerable facts which
contradict it. It is our business, however, to point out its fallacy;
and happily the fallacy is not very recondite.

We grant that rulers will take as much as they can of the objects of
their desires; and that, when the agency of other men is necessary to
that end, they will attempt by all means in their power to enforce the
prompt obedience of such men. But what are the objects of human desire?
Physical pleasure, no doubt, in part. But the mere appetites which we
have in common with the animals would be gratified almost as cheaply and
easily as those of the animals are gratified, if nothing were given to
taste, to ostentation, or to the affections. How small a portion of the
income of a gentleman in easy circumstances is laid out merely in giving
pleasurable sensations to the body of the possessor! The greater
part even of what is spent on his kitchen and his cellar goes, not to
titillate his palate, but to keep up his character for hospitality, to
save him from the reproach of meanness in housekeeping, and to
cement the ties of good neighbourhood. It is clear that a king or an
aristocracy may be supplied to satiety with mere corporal pleasures, at
an expense which the rudest and poorest community would scarcely feel.

Those tastes and propensities which belong to us as reasoning and
imaginative beings are not indeed so easily gratified. There is, we
admit, no point of saturation with objects of desire which come under
this head. And therefore the argument of Mr Mill will be just, unless
there be something in the nature of the objects of desire themselves
which is inconsistent with it. Now, of these objects there is none which
men in general seem to desire more than the good opinion of others. The
hatred and contempt of the public are generally felt to be
intolerable. It is probable that our regard for the sentiments of our
fellow-creatures springs, by association, from a sense of their ability
to hurt or to serve us. But, be this as it may, it is notorious that,
when the habit of mind of which we speak has once been formed, men feel
extremely solicitous about the opinions of those by whom it is most
improbable, nay, absolutely impossible, that they should ever be in the
slightest degre