第94章 BENTHAM'S DOCTRINE(16)

Wherever an aristocracy differs from the democracy,their judgment will be erroneous.(87)The people will naturally choose 'morally apt agents,'and men who wish to be chosen will desire truly to become 'morally apt,'for they can only recommend themselves by showing their desire to serve the general interest.(88)'All experience testifies to this theory,'though the evidence is 'too bulky'to be given.Other proofs,however,may at once be rendered superfluous by appealing to 'the uninterrupted and most notorious experience of the United States.'(89)To that happy country he often appeals indeed(90)as a model government.In it,there is no corruption,no useless expenditure,none of the evils illustrated by our 'matchless constitution.'

The constitution deduced from these principles has at least the merit of simplicity.We are to have universal suffrage,annual parliaments,and vote by ballot.He inclines to give a vote to women.(91)There is to be no king,no house of peers,no established church.Members of parliament are not to be re-eligible,till after an interval.Elaborate rules provide for their regular attendance and exclusive devotion to their masters'business.

They are to be simply 'deputies,'not 'representatives.'They elect a prime minister who holds office for four years.Officials are to be appointed by a complex plan of competitive examination;and they are to be invited to send in tenders for doing the work at diminished salary.When once in office,every care is taken for their continual inspection by the public and the verification of their accounts.They are never for an instant to forget that they are servants,not the masters,of the public.

Bentham,of course,is especially minute and careful in regard to the judicial organisation a subject upon which he wrote much,and much to the purpose.The functions and fees of advocates are to be narrowly restricted,and advocates to be provided gratuitously for the poor.They are not to become judges:to make a barrister a judge is as sensible as it would be to select a procuress for mistress of a girls'school.(92)Judges should be everywhere accessible:always on duty,too busy to have time for corruption,and always under public supervision.One characteristic device is his quasi-jury.The English system of requiring unanimity was equivalent to enforcing perjury by torture.Its utility as a means of resisting tyranny would disappear when tyranny had become impossible.But public opinion might be usefully represented by a 'quasi-jury'of three or five,who should not pronounce a verdict,but watch the judge,interrogate,if necessary,and in case of need demand a rehearing.Judges,of course,were no longer to make law,but to propose amendments in the 'Pannomion'or universal code,when new cases arose.

His leading principle may be described in one word as 'responsibility,'or expressed in his leading rule,'Minimise Confidence.'(93)'All government is in itself one vast evil.'(94)It consists in applying evil to exclude worse evil.Even 'to reward is to punish,'(95)when reward is given by government.

The less government,then,the better;but as governors are a necessary evil,they must be limited by every possible device to the sole legitimate aim,and watched at every turn by the all-seeing eye of public opinion.Every one must admit that this is an application of a sound principle,and that one condition of good government is the diffusion of universal responsibility.

It must be admitted,too,that Bentham's theory represents a vigorous embodiment and unflinching application of doctrines which since his time have spread and gained more general authority.Mill says that granting one assumption,the Constitutional Code is 'admirable.'(96)That assumption is that it is for the good of mankind to be under the absolute authority of a majority.

In other words,it would justify what Mill calls the 'despotism of public opinion.'To protest against that despotism was one of the main purposes of Mill's political writings.How was it that the disciple came to be in such direct opposition to his master?That question cannot be answered till we have considered Mill's own position.But I have now followed Bentham far enough to consider the more general characteristics of his doctrine.

I have tried,in the first place,to show what was the course of Bentham's own development;how his observation of certain legal abuses led him to attempt the foundation of a science of jurisprudence;how the difficulty of obtaining a hearing for his arguments led him to discover the power of 'Judge and Co.';how he found out that behind 'Judge and Co.'were George III and the base Sidmouth,and the whole band of obstructors entrenched within the 'matchless constitution';and how thus his attack upon the abuses of the penal law led him to attack the whole political framework of the country.I have also tried to show how Bentham's development coincided with that of the English reformers generally.They too began with attacking specific abuses.They were for 'reform,not revolution.'The constitution satisfied them in the main:they boasted of the palladia of their liberties,'trial by jury'and the 'Habeas Corpus'Act,and held Frenchmen to be frog-eating slaves in danger of lettres de cachet and the Bastille.English public opinion in spite of many trammels had a potent influence.Their first impulse,therefore,was simply to get rid of the trammels --the abuses which had grown up from want of a thorough application of the ancient principles in their original purity.The English Whig,even of the more radical persuasion,was profoundly convinced that the foundations were sound,however unsatisfactory might be the superstructure.