The Gazette 1983

GAZETTE

JULY/AUGUST

198

BOOK REVIEW

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and

Legislation by Jeremy Bentham; edited by J. H. Burns

and H. L. A. Hart, London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1982

(lxx, 343p.). Price £6.95p (Sterling).

Jeremy Bentham, the son of a solicitor, was born in

London in 1748. On being called to the Bar in 1772 he

applied himself to the theory of law and became perhaps

the greatest critic of legislation and government in his day.

His first publication

A Fragment on Government

(1-776)

contained the germs of most of his later writings and

procured for him the acquaintance of the Marquis of

Lansdowne at whose seat in Wiltshire he afterwards

passed some of the most agreeable hours of his life.

"Nature", says Bentham, "has placed mankind under

the governance of two sovereign masters,

pain

and

pleasure

". The principle of utility, which recognises this

subjection, is the foundation of his philosophy. By utility

he meant the property in any object whereby it tends to

produce benefit, advantage, pleasure or happiness or to

prevent the happening of mischief, pain or evil to the party

whose interest is considered. This principle approves or

disapproves of every action whatsoever, either of a private

individual or of a Government, according to the tendency

which it has to augment or diminish the happiness of the

interested party. While this doctrine of utility is the

pervading principle in all his writings Bentham's favourite

vehicle for it's expression was "the greatest happiness

of the greatest number". Happiness for him consists in the

enjoyment of pleasures and security from pain and the

duty of government was to promote the happiness of

society by punishing and rewarding. He was indeed a

pioneer of liberalism and radicalism.

Those who have the occasion to study Bentham will find

his extraordinary, minute arid comprehensive diagnosis of

man's nature and motives presented with care in the text

and footnotes of this fine publication. Only in the Af

aximes

of La Rochefoucauld do we find a match for Bentham's

utilitarianism.

It is no easy task to peruse this volume with

advantage. It's study is a labour of duty rather than of love

and the student will find chapters dealing with the sources,

kinds and measurement of pain and pleasure, the

circumstances influencing sensibility, mischievous acts

(including the non-payment of taxes), motives, conscious-

ness, human actions and dispositions, division of offences

and the proportion between them and punishment. An

example of the quality and texture of his thinking may be

found in his statement on the strength of intellectual

powers to which he refers the several qualities of'readiness

of apprehension, clearness of discernment, accuracy and

tenacity of memory, amplitude of comprehension and

vividity and rapidity of imagination'.

After such labour is it any wonder that Bentham enjoyed

his diversions at Bowood Park with Lord Lansdowne! A

generation later the third marquis (Henry Petty

Fitzmaurice) was the friend and patron of the poet Thomas

Moore. Descended from the Fitzmaurices of Kerry and

Sir William Petty of the Down Survey, this family enter-

tained such varied people as Bentham, Mirabeau, Romilly

and our own Tom Moore who composed many of the

Irish

Melodies

when he lived in Sloperton Cottage on the estate.

(continued on p. 141)

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135