of drawing on time, and every other condition neceffary, it would be his wish to poftpone the publication of each part to the completion of the whole; efpecially as the exact truth of the ten parts, which are intended to furnish reasons for the correfponding provifions in the body of law itself, cannot be precifely ascertained till the provifions, to which they are defined to apply, are themselves afcertained, and that in terminis.-The infirmity of human nature, however, as he obferves, rendering all plans precarious in the execution, in proportion as they are extenfive in the defign; and as he has already advanced confiderably farther in his theory than in his correfponding practical applications; he deems it more than probable that the order of publication will not be that which, were it equaily practicable, would appear moft eligible; though the unavoidable refult of this irregularity will be a multitude of imperfections, which, if the execution of the body of law in terminis had kept pace with the developement of the principles, so that each part had been adjufted and corrected by the other, might have been avoided. The foundation, on which Mr. Bentham builds his whole fyftem of morals and legislation, is the principle of Utility, which he thus unfolds and explains in the present work-a work now made to ferve, by the help of fome alterations and additions, as an introduction to his enlarged plan, though it was originally drawn up for the purpose of introducing only a confined part of it: Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two fovereign mafters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. Ол the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of caufes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we fay, in all we think every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will ferve but to demonftrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain fubject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this fubjection, and affumes it for the foundation of that fyftem, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reafon and of law. Syftems which attempt to queflion it, deal in founds inftead of feafe, in caprice instead of reason, in darknefs instead of light. But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by fuch means that moral fcience is to be improved. II. The principle of utility is the foundation of the prefent work: it will be proper therefore at the outfet to give an explicit and difcriminate account of what is meant by it. By the principle of utility 23 [Principle] The word principle is derived from the Latin word principium: which feems to be compounded of the two words primus, first, is meant that principle which approves or difapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whofe intereft is in queftion: or, what is the fame thing in other words, to promote or to oppofe that happiness. I fay of every action whatsoever; and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government. III. By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the prefent cafe comes to the fame thing) or (what comes again to the fame thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is confidered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the com. munity if a particular individual, then the happiness of that individual. IV. The intereft of the community is one of the most general expreffions that can occur in the phrafeology of morals: no wonder that the meaning of it is often loft. When it has a meaning, it is this. The community is a fictitious body, compofed of the individual perfons who are confidered as conftituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what? the fum of the interests of the feveral members who compofe it. V. It is in vain to talk of the intereft of the community, without understanding what is the intereft of the individual *. A thing is faid to promote the intereft, or to be for the intereft, of an individual, when it tends to add to the fum total of his pleafures: or, what comes to the fame thing, to diminish the fum total of his pains. VI. An action then may be faid to be conformable to the principle of utility, or, for fhortnefs fake, to utility, (meaning with refpect to the community at large) when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it. VII. A measure of government (which is but a particular kind of action, performed by a particular perfon or perfons) may be faid to be conformable to or dictated by the principle of utility, when in like manner the tendency which it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any which it has to diminish it, first, or chief, and cipium, a termination which feems to be derived from capio to take, as in mancipium, municipium: to which are analogous auceps, forceps, and others. It is a term of very vague and very extenfive fignification; it is applied to any thing which is conceived to ferve as a foundation or beginning to any feries of operations: in some cases, of phyfical operations; but of mental operations in the prefent cafe. The principle here in queftion may be taken for an act of the mind; a fentiment; a fentiment of approbation; a fentiment which, when applied to an action, approves of its utility, as that quality of it by which the measure of approbation or difapprobation bestowed upon it ought to be governed." * [Intereft, &c.] Intereft is one of those words, which not having any fuperior genus, cannot in the ordinary way be defined.' • VIII. When VIII. When an action, or in particular a measure of government, is fuppofed by a man to be conformable to the principle of utility, it may be convenient, for the purposes of difcourfe, to imagine a kind of law or dictate, called a law or dictate of utility: and to fpeak of the action in question, as being conformable to fuch law or dictate. IX. A man may be faid to be a partizan of the principle of utility, when the approbation or difapprobation he annexes to any action, or to any measure, is determined by and proportioned to the tendency which he conceives it to have to augment or to diminish the happiness of the community or in other words, to its conformity or unconformity to the laws or dictates of utility. X. Of an action that is conformable to the principle of utility, one may always fay either that it is one that ought to be done, or at leaft that it is one that ought not to be done. One may fay alfo, that it is right it should be done; at least that it is not wrong it fhould be done; that it is a right action; at least that it is not a wrong action. When thus interpreted, the words ought, and right and wrong, and others of that stamp, have a meaning: when otherwise they have mone. XI. Has the rectitude of this principle been ever formally contefted? It fhould feem that it had, by thofe who have not known what they have been meaning. Is it fufceptible of any direct proof? it fhould feem not: for that which is ufed to prove every thing elfe, cannot itself be proved: a chain of proofs must have their commencement fomewhere. To give fuch proof is as impoffible as it is needlefs. XII. Not that there is or ever has been that human creature breathing, however ftupid or perverfe, who has not on many, perhaps on moft occafions of his life, deferr'd to it. By the natural conftitution of the human frame, on moft occafions of their lives men in general embrace this principle, without thinking of it: if not for the ordering of their own actions, yet for the trying of their own actions, as well as of thofe of other men. There have been, at the fame time, not many, perhaps, even of the most intelligent, who have been difpofed to embrace it purely and without referve. There are even few who have not taken fome occafion or other to quarrel with it, either on account of their not understanding always how to apply it, or on account of fonie prejudice or other which they were afraid to examine into, or could not bear to part with. For fuch is the ftuff that man is made of in principle and in practice, in a right track and in a wrong one, the rareft of all human qualities is confiftency. XIII. When a man attempts to combat the principle of utility, it is with reafons drawn, without his being aware of it, from that very principle itself. His arguments, if they prove any thing, prove, not that the principle is wrong, but that, according to the applications he fuppofes to be made of it, it is misapplied. Is it poffible for a man to move the earth? Yes; but he muft find out another earth to ftand upon. *«The principle of utility," (I have heard it faid)" is a dangerous principle: it is dangerous on certain occafions to confult it." This is as much as to fay, what that it is not confonant to utility, to confult utility: in fhort, that it is not confulting it, to confult it." • XIV. To XIV. To difprove the propriety of it by arguments is impoffible; but, from the caufes that have been mentioned, or from fome confufed or partial view of it, a man may happen to be difpofed not to relish it Where this is the cafe, if he thinks the fettling of his opi nions on such a subject worth the trouble, let him take the following Reps, and at length, perhaps, he may come to reconcile himself to it. 1. Let him fettle with himself, whether he would wish to discard this principle altogether; if fo, let him confider what it is that all his reafonings (in matters of politics especially) can amount to ? 2. If he would, let him fettle with himself, whether he would judge and act without any principle, or whether there is any other he would judge and act by ? 3. If there be, let him examine and fatisfy himself whether the principle he thinks he has found is really any feparate intelligible principle; or whether it be not a mere principle in words, a kind of phrafe, which at bottom expreffes neither more nor less than the mere averment of his own untounded fentiments; that is, what in another perfon he might be apt to call caprice? 4. If he is inclined to think that his own approbation or difapprobation, annexed to the idea of an act, without any regard to its confequences, is a fufficient foundation for him to judge and act upon, let him ask himself whether his fentiment is to be a standard of right and wrong, with refpect to every other man, or whether every man's fentiment has the fame privilege of being a standard to itself? 15. In the firft cafe, let him afk himself whether his principle is not defpotical, and hoftile to all the reft of the human race? 6. In the fecond cafe, whether it is not anarchical, and whether at this rate there are not as many different standards of right and wrong as there are men? and whether even to the fame man, the fame thing, which is right to day, may not (without the leaft change in its nature) be wrong to-morrow and whether the fame thing is not right and wrong in the fame place at the fame time? and in either cafe, whether all argument is not at an end? and whether, when two men have faid, “I like this," and "I don't like it," they can (upon fuch a principle) have any thing more to say? 7. If he should have faid to himself, No: for that the fentiment which he propotes as a standard must be grounded on reflection, let him fay on what particulars the reflection is to turn? if on particulars having relation to the utility of the act, then let him fay whether this is not deferting his own principle, and borrowing affiftance from that very one in oppofition to which he fets it up: or if not on those particulars, on what other particulars? 8. If he fhould be for compounding the matter, and adopting his own principle in part, and the principle of utility in part, let him fay how far he will adopt it? 9. When he has fettled with himself where he will stop, then let him ask himself how he juftifies to himself the adopting it so far? and why he will not adopt it any farther ? 10. Admitting any other principle than the principle of utility to be a right principle, a principle that it is right for a man to purfue; admitting (what is not true) that the word right can have a meaning without reference to utility, let him fay whether there is any fuch thing as a motive that a man can have to purfue the dictates of it: if there is, let him fay what that motive is, and how it is to be distinguished from those which enforce the dictates of utility: if not, then laftly let him fay what it is this other principle can be good for?' [To be concluded in our next Review.] Pear.e. ART. XII. Mifcellaneous Tracts and Collections relating to Natural Hif- BY The first that offers itself is a calendar of natural occurrences, which are fuppofed to have taken place in Greece and moft probably in the latitude of Athens. This is taken nearly, but not altogether from Theophraftus's Hiftory of Plants. A fimilar attempt was made fome years ago, and published by Mr. Stilling fleet in his Miscellaneous Tracts. That here inferted, though defective in point of matter, is nevertheless more full and explicit than that given by the Gentleman mentioned above; and contains, in addition to what he has given, an account of the weather and of the cofmical, achronical, and heliacal rifing and fetting of many of the ftars and conftellations, which have enabled the author to fix with greater probability the time of the year of many of the natural events recorded by Theophraftus, and to adjust them to modern computation. This part of the calendar is taken moftly from Geminus, an ancient Greek writer whofe date is not afcertained, fome thinking him to be prior to Hipparchus, others bringing him later as to the time of Sylla, or even of Cicero. This calendar is made to commence with the fummer folftice, at which time the Greeks began their folar year. It was firft intended to have divided the year according to the Greek months, but feveral reasons determined against fuch an attempt. I. The names and order of the Greek months are fo much difputed, and fo doubtful, that it would have required a long previous difcuffion to fettle their places and denominations, a thing inconfiftent with a work like the prefent. Moreover the year to which these months were adjusted was either of the lunar kind, and confifting of 354 days only, or else fomewhat between the lunar and folar year, and containing 360 days; and probably both of them were in ufe at different periods of time. The calendar however was fo incorrectly REV. MARCH, 1795managed, Y |