e points on which, by universal
admission, all these rights have to give way. What is the right of
property worth in times of war or of any overwhelming general need? The
Declaration itself recognized the need of appeal to common utility or to
the law to define the limits of individual right. Bentham would frankly
make all rights dependent on common utility, and therewith he would make
it possible to examine all conflicting claims in the light of a general
principle. He would measure them all by a common standard. Has a man the
right to express his opinion freely? To determine the question on
Bentham's lines we must ask whether it is, on the whole, useful to
society that the free expression of opinion should be allowed, and this,
he would say, is a question which may be decided by general reasoning
and by experience of results. Of course, we must take the rough with the
smooth. If the free expression of opinion is allowed, false opinion will
find utterance and will mislead many. The question would be, does the
loss involved in the promulgation of error counterbalance the gain to be
derived from unfettered discussion? and Bentham would hold himself free
to judge by results. Should the State maintain the rights of private
property? Yes, if the admission of those rights is useful to the
community as a whole. No, if it is not useful. Some rights of property,
again, may be advantageous, others disadvantageous. The community is
free to make a selection. If it finds that certain forms of property are
working to the exclusive benefit of individuals and the prejudice of the
common weal, it has good ground for the suppression of those forms of
property, while it may, with equal justice, maintain other forms of
property which it holds sound as judged by the effect on the common
welfare. It is limited by no "imprescriptible" right of the individual.
It may do with the individual what it pleases provided that it has the
good of the whole in view. So far as the question of right is concerned
the Benthamite principle might be regarded as decidedly socialistic or
even authoritarian. It contemplates, at least as a possibility, the
complete subordination of individual to social claims.

There is, however, another side to the Benthamite principle, to
understand which we must state the heads of the theory itself as a
positive doctrine. What is this social utility of which we have spoken?
In what does it consist? What is useful to society, a