n
degree for each; and the vote of the majority, if it could be taken on
this question alone and based on self-interest alone, might be conceived
without absurdity as representing a sum of individual interests. Even
here, however, observe that, though the greatest number is considered,
the greatest happiness does not fare so well. For to raise the same sum
the tax on wine will, as less is drunk, have to be much larger than the
tax on tea, so that a little gain to many tea-drinkers might inflict a
heavy loss on the few wine-drinkers, and on the Benthamite principle it
is not clear that this would be just. In point of fact it is possible
for a majority to act tyrannically, by insisting on a slight convenience
to itself at the expense, perhaps, of real suffering to a minority. Now
the Utilitarian principle by no means justifies such tyranny, but it
does seem to contemplate the weighing of one man's loss against
another's gain, and such a method of balancing does not at bottom
commend itself to our sense of justice. We may lay down that if there is
a rational social order at all it must be one which never rests the
essential indispensable condition of the happiness of one man on the
unavoidable misery of another, nor the happiness of forty millions of
men on the misery of one. It may be temporarily expedient, but it is
eternally unjust, that one man should die for the people.

We may go further. The case of the contemplated tax is, as applied to
the politics of a modern State, an unreal one. Political questions
cannot be thus isolated. Even if we could vote by referendum on a
special tax, the question which voters would have to consider would
never be the revenue from and the incidence of that tax alone. All the
indirect social and economic bearings of the tax would come up for
consideration, and in the illustration chosen people would be swayed,
and rightly swayed, by their opinion, for example, of the comparative
effects of tea-drinking and wine-drinking. No one element of the social
life stands separate from the rest, any more than any one element of the
animal body stands separate from the rest. In this sense the life of
society is rightly held to be organic, and all considered public policy
must be conceived in its bearing on the life of society as a whole. But
the moment that we apply this view to politics, the Benthamite mode of
stating the case for democracy is seen to be insufficient. The interests
of every man are