uenced their actions; and it will not be very
easy to demonstrate that it has influenced their actions the more
because they have called it the moral sense. The theory of the original
contract is a fiction, and a very absurd fiction; but in practice it
meant, what the "greatest happiness principle," if ever it becomes a
watchword of political warfare, will mean--that is to say, whatever
served the turn of those who used it. Both the one expression and the
other sound very well in debating clubs; but in the real conflicts of
life our passions and interests bid them stand aside and know their
place. The "greatest happiness principle" has always been latent under
the words, social contract, justice, benevolence, patriotism, liberty,
and so forth, just as far as it was for the happiness, real or imagined,
of those who used these words to promote the greatest happiness of
mankind. And of this we may be sure, that the words "greatest happiness"
will never, in any man's mouth, mean more than the greatest happiness of
others which is consistent with what he thinks his own. The project of
mending a bad world by teaching people to give new names to old things
reminds us of Walter Shandy's scheme for compensating the loss of his
son's nose by christening him Trismegistus. What society wants is a
new motive--not a new cant. If Mr Bentham can find out any argument yet
undiscovered which may induce men to pursue the general happiness,
he will indeed be a great benefactor to our species. But those whose
happiness is identical with the general happiness are even now promoting
the general happiness to the very best of their power and knowledge; and
Mr Bentham himself confesses that he has no means of persuading those
whose happiness is not identical with the general happiness to act upon
his principle. Is not this, then, darkening counsel by words without
knowledge? If the only fruit of the "magnificent principle" is to be,
that the oppressors and pilferers of the next generation are to talk of
seeking the greatest happiness of the greatest number, just as the same
class of men have talked in our time of seeking to uphold the Protestant
constitution--just as they talked under Anne of seeking the good of the
Church, and under Cromwell of seeking the Lord--where is the gain? Is
not every great question already enveloped in a sufficiently dark cloud
of unmeaning words? Is it so difficult for a man to cant some one or
more of the good old Eng