MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, MARCH, 1829.]

Or those philosophers who call themselves | them that the studies which they have neglected Utilitarians, and whom others generally call are of no value, puts five or six phrases inte Benthamites, Mr. Mill is, with the exception of their mouths, lends them an odd number of the the illustrious founder of the sect, by far the Westminster Review, and in a month transmost distinguished. The little work now before forms them into philosophers. Mingled with us contains a summary of the opinions held by these smatterers, whose attainments just suffice this gentleman and his brethren, on several to elevate them from the insignificance of subjects most important to society. All the dunces to the dignity of bores, and to spread seven Essays of which it consists, abound in dismay among their pious aunts and grandcurious matter. But at present we intend to mothers, there are, we well know, many wellconfine our remarks to the Treatise on Govern- meaning men, who have really read and ment, which stands first in the volume. On thought much; but whose reading and medisome future occasion we may perhaps attempt tation have been almost exclusively confined to do justice to the rest. to one class of subjects; and who, consequently, though they possess much valuable knowledge respecting those subjects, are by no means so well qualified to judge of a great system as if they had taken a more enlarged view of literature and society.

greater freedom of diction. It was impossible | in a theory because a fact contradicts it, is what to reason from phenomena up to principles, to neither philosopher nor pope ever before remark slight shades of difference in quality, or quired. This, however, is what Mr. Mill deto estimate the comparative effect of two oppo- mands of us. He seems to think that if all site considerations, between which there was despots, without exception, governed ill, it no common measure, by means of the naked would be unnecessary to prove, by a synthetical and meager jargon of the schoolmen. Of those argument, what would then be sufficiently clear schoolmen, Mr. Mill has inherted both the spirit from experience. But as some despots will be and the style. He is an Aristotelian of the so perverse as to govern well, he finds himself fifteenth century, born out of due season. We compelled to prove the impossibility of their have here an elaborate treatise on government, governing well, by that synthetical argument, from which, but for two or three passing allu- which would have been superfluous had not sions, it would not appear that the author was the facts contradicted it. He reasons a priori, aware that any governments actually existed because the phenomena are not what, by reaamong men. Certain propensities of human soning a priori, he will prove them to be. In nature are assumed; and from these premises other words, he reasons a priori, because, by so the whole science of politics is synthetically reasoning, he is certain to arrive at a false deduced! We can scarcely persuade ourselves conclusion! that we are not reading a book written before the time of Bacon and Galileo,—a book written in those days in which physicians reasoned from the nature of heat to the treatment of fever, and astronomers proved syllogistically that the planets could have no independent motion, because the heavens were incorruptible, and nature abhorred a vacuum!

The reason, too, which Mr. Mill has assigned for taking this course strikes us as most extraordinary.

"Experience," says he, "if we look only at the outside of the facts, appears to be divided on this subject. Absolute monarchy, under Neros and Caligulas, under such men as the emperors of Morocco and sultans of Turkey, is the scourge of human nature. On the other side, the people of Denmark, tired out with the oppression of an aristocracy, resolved that their king should be absolute; and, under their absolute monarch, are as well governed as any people in Europe."

This Mr. Mill actually gives as a reason for pursuing the a priori method. But, in our judgment, the very circumstances which he mentions, irresistibly prove that the a priori method is altogether unfit for investigations of this kind, and that the only way to arrive at the truth is by induction. Experience can never be divided, or even appear to be divided, except with reference to some hypothesis. When we say that one fact is inconsistent with another fact, we mean only that it is inconsistent with the theory which we have founded on that other fact. But, if the fact be certain, the unavoidable conclusion is, that our theory is false: and in order to correct it, we must reason back from an enlarged collection of facts to principles.

Now, here we have two governments which, by Mr. Mill's own account, come under the same head in his theoretical classification. It is evident, therefore, that, by reasoning on that theoretical classification, we shall be brought to the conclusion that these two forms of government must produce the same effects. But Mr. Mill himself tells us, that they do not produce the same effects. Hence he infers, that the only way to get at truth is to place implicit confidence in that chain of proof a priori, from which it appears that they must produce the same effects! To believe at once in a theory, and in a fact which contradicts it, is an exercise of faith sufficiently hard: But, to believe

In the course of the examination to which we propose to subject the speculations of Mr. Mill, we shall have to notice many other curious instances of that turn of mind which the passage above quoted indicates.

The first chapter of his Essay relates to the ends of government. The conception on this subject, he tells us, which exists in the minds of most men, is vague and undistinguishing. He first assumes, justly enough, that the end of government is "to increase to the utmost the pleasures, and diminish to the utmost the pains, which men derive from each other." He then proceeds to show, with great form, that "the greatest possible happiness of society is attained by insuring to every man the greatest possible quantity of the produce of his labour." To effect this is, in his opinion, the end of government. It is remarkable that Mr. Mill, with all his affected display of precision, has here given a description of the ends of government far less precise than that which is in the mouths of the vulgar. The first man with whom Mr. Mill may travel in a stage-coach will tell him that government exists for the protection of the persons and property of men. But Mr. Mill seems to think that the preservation of property is the first and only object. It is true, doubtless, that many of the injuries which are offered to the persons of men proceed from a desire to possess their property. But the practice of vindictive assassination, as it has existed in some parts of Europe-the practice of fighting wanton and sanguinary duels, like those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which bands of seconds risked their lives as well as the principals;— these practices, and many others which might be named, are evidently injurious to society; and we do not see how a government which tolerated them could be said "to diminish to the utmost the pains which men derive from each other." Therefore, according to Mr. Mill's very correct assumption, such a government would not perfectly accomplish the end of its institution. Yet such a government might, as far as we can perceive, "insure to every man the greatest possible quantity of the produce of his labour." Therefore, such a government might, according to Mr. Mill's subsequent doctrine, perfectly accomplish the end of its institution. The matter is not of much consequence, except as an instance of

that slovenliness of thinking which is often | tocracy may soon be saturated with the objects concealed beneath a peculiar ostentation of logical neatness.

Having determined the ends, Mr. Mill proceeds to consider the means. For the preservation of property, some portion of the community must be intrusted with power. This is government; and the question is, how are those to whom the necessary power is intrusted to be prevented from abusing it?

Mr. Mill first passes in review the simple forms of government. He allows that it would be inconvenient, if not physically impossible, that the whole community should meet in a mass; it follows, therefore, that the powers of government cannot be directly exercised by the people. But he sees no objection to pure and direct democracy, except the difficulty which we have mentioned.

"The community," says he, "cannot have an interest opposite to its interest. To affirm this would be a contradiction in terms. The community within itself, and with respect to itself, can have no sinister interest. One community may intend the evil of another; never its own. This is an indubitable proposition, and one of great importance."

Mr. Mill then proceeds to demonstrate that a purely aristocratical form of government is necessarily bad.

"The reason for which government exists is, that one man, if stronger than another, will take from him whatever that other possesses and he desires. But if one man will do this, so will several. And if powers are put into the hands of a comparatively small number, called an aristocracy,-powers which make them stronger than the rest of the community, they will take from the rest of the community 'as much as they please of the objects of desire. They will thus defeat the very end for which government was instituted. The unfitness, therefore, of an aristocracy to be intrusted with the powers of government, rests on demonstration."

of their desires, and may then protect the com munity in the enjoyment of the rest? Mr. Mill answers in the negative. He proves, with great pomp, that every man desires to have the actions of every other correspondent to his will. Others can be induced to conform to our will only by motives derived from pleasure or from pain. The infliction of pain is of course direct injury; and even if it take the milder course, in order to produce obedience by motives derived from pleasure, the government must confer favours. But, as there is no limit to its desire of obedience, there will be no limit to its disposition to confer favours; and, as it can confer favours only by plundering the people, there will be no limit to its disposition to plunder the people. "It is therefore not true, that there is in the mind of a king, or in the minds of an aristocracy, any point of saturation with the objects of desire."

Mr. Mill then proceeds to show that, as monarchical and oligarchical governments can influence men by motives drawn from pain as well as by motives drawn from pleasure, they will carry their cruelty, as well as their rapacity, to a frightful extent. As he seems greatly to admire his own reasonings on this subject, we think it but fair to let him speak for himself.

"The chain of inference in this case is close and strong to a most unusual degree. A man desires that the actions of other men shall be instantly and accurately correspondent to his will. He desires that the actions of the greatest possible number shall be so. Terror is the grand instrument. Terror can work only through assurance that evil will follow any failure of conformity between the will and the actions willed. Every failure must therefore be punished. As there are no bounds to the mind's desire of its pleasure, there are, of course, no bounds to its desire of perfection in the instruments of that pleasure. There are, therefore, no bounds to its desire of exactness in the conformity between its will and the

In exactly the same manner Mr. Mill proves absolute monarchy to be a bad form of govern-actions willed; and, by consequence, to the ment.

"If government is founded upon this as a law of human nature, that a man, if able, will take from others any thing which they have and he desires, it is sufficiently evident that when a man is called a king he does not change his nature; so that when he has got power to enable him to take from every man what he pleases, he will take whatever he pleases. To suppose that he will not, is to affirm that government is unnecessary, and that human beings will abstain from injuring one another of their own accord.

"It is very evident that this reasoning extends to every modification of the smaller number. Whenever the powers of government are placed in any hands other than those of the community, whether those of one man, of a few, or of several, those principles of human nature which imply that government is at all necessary, imply that those persons will make use of them to defeat the very end for which government exists."

strength of that terror which is its procuring cause. Even the most minute failure must be visited with the heaviest infliction; and as failure in extreme exactness must frequently happen, the occasions of cruelty must be in cessant.

"We have thus arrived at several conclusions of the highest possible importance. We have seen that the principle of human nature upon which the necessity of government is founded, the propensity of one man to possess himself of the objects of desire at the cost of another, leads on, by infallible sequence, where power over a community is attained, and nothing checks, not only to that degree of plunder which leaves the members, (excepting always the recipients and instruments of the plunder,) the bare means of subsistence, but to that degree of cruelty which is necessary to keep in existence the most intense terrors.”

Now, no man who has the least knowledge of the real state of the world, either in former ages or at the present moment, can possibly But is it not possible that a king or an aris-be convinced, though he may perhaps be be

wildered, by arguments like these. During execration, are feelings from the influence of the last two centuries, some hundreds of ab- which scarcely any man is perfectly free, and solute princes have reigned in Europe. Is which in many men are powerful and constant it true that their cruelty has kept in exist- motives of action. As we are afraid that, if ence the most intense degree of terror, that we handle this part of the argument after our their rapacity has left no more than the bare own manner, we shall incur the reproach of means of subsistence to any of their subjects, sentimentality, a word which, in the sacred their ministers and soldiers excepted? Is this language of the Benthamites, is synonymous true of all of them? Of one-half of them? with idiocy, we will quote what Mr. Mill himOf one-tenth part of them? Of a single one? self says on the subject, in his Treatise on Is it true, in the full extent, even of Philip the Jurisprudence. Second, of Lewis the Fifteenth, or of the Emperor Paul? But it is scarcely necessary to quote history. No man of common sense, however ignorant he may be of books, can be imposed on by Mr. Mill's argument; because no man of comm n sense can live among his fellow-creatures for a day without seeing in-favourableness in the sentiments of his fellownumerable facts which contradict it. It is our business, however, to point out its fallacy; and, happily, the fallacy is not very recondite.

"Pains from the moral source are the pains derived from the unfavourable sentiments of mankind. These pains are capable

of rising to a height with which hardly any other pains incident to our nature can be compared. There is a certain degree of un

creatures, under which hardly any man, not below the standard of humanity, can endure to live.

"To know how to direct the unfavourable sentiments of mankind, it is necessary to know in as complete, that is, in as comprehensive, a way as possible, what it is which gives them birth. Without entering into the metaphysics of the question, it is a sufficient practical answer, for the present purpose, to say that the unfavourable sentiments of man are excited by every thing which hurts them."

We grant that rulers will take as much as "The importance of this powerful agency, they can of the objects of their desires; and for the prevention of injurious acts, is too obthat when the agency of other men is neces-vious to need to be illustrated. If sufficiently sary to that end, they will attempt by all means at command, it would almost supersede the in their power to enforce the prompt obedience use of other means. of such men. But what are the objects of human desire? Physical pleasure, no doubt, in part. But the mere appetites which we have in common with the animals, would be gratified almost as cheaply and easily as those of the animals are gratified, if nothing were given to taste, to ostentation, or to the affections. How small a portion of the income of a gentleman in easy circumstances is laid out merely in giving pleasurable sensations to the body of It is strange that a writer who considers the the possessor? The greater part even of what pain derived from the unfavourable sentiments is spent on his kitchen and his cellar, goes not of others as so acute, that, if sufficiently at to titillate his palate, but to keep up his charac- command, it would supersede the use of the ter for hospitality, to save him from the re-gallows and the treadmill, should take no noproach of meanness in house-keeping, and to cement the ties of good neighbourhood. It is clear, that a king or an aristocracy may be supplied to satiety with mere corporeal pleasures, at an expense which the rudest and poorest community would scarcely feel.

tice of this most important restraint, when discussing the question of government. We will attempt to deduce a theory of politics in the mathematical form, in which Mr. Mill delights, from the premises with which he has himself furnished us.

PROPOSITION 1. THEOREM.

No rulers will do any thing which may hurt the people.

This is the thesis to be maintained; and the following we humbly offer to Mr. Mill as its syllogistic demonstration.

No rulers will do that which produces pain to themselves.

But the unfavourable sentiments of the peo ple will give pain to them.

Therefore no rulers will do any thing which may excite the unfavourable sentiments of the

Those tastes and propensities which belong to us as reasoning and imaginative beings, are not, indeed, so easily gratified. There is, we admit, no point of saturation with objects of desire which come under this head.. And therefore the argument of Mr. Mill will be just, unless there be something in the nature of the objects of desire themselves which is inconsistent with it. Now, of these objects there is none which men in general seem to desire more than the good opinion of others. The hatred and contempt of the public are generally felt to be intolerable. It is probable, that our regard for the sentiments of our fellow-people. creatures springs by association from a sense of their ability to hurt or to serve us. But be this as it may, it is notorious, that when the habit of mind of which we speak has once been formed, men feel extremely solicitous about the opinions of those by whom it is most improbable, nay, absolutely impossible, that they should ever be in the slightest degree injured or benefited. The desire of posthumous fame, and the dread of posthumous reproach and VOL. V.-85

But the unfavourable sentiments of the people are excited by every thing which hurts them.

Therefore no rulers will do any thing which may hurt the people, which was the thing to be proved.

Having thus, as we think, not unsuccessfully imitated Mr. Mill's logic, we do not see why we should not imitate what is at least equally perfect in its kind, his self-complacency, and 3 L

proclaim our Eugna in his own words: "The | solicitous about the opinion of his neighbours chain of inference, in this case, is close and as a rich man. strong to a most unusual degree."

The fact is, that when men, in treating of things which cannot be circumscribed by precise definitions, adopt this mode of reasoning, when once they begin to talk of power, happiness, misery, pain, pleasure, motives, objects of desire, as they talk of lines and numbers, there is no end to the contradictions and absurdities into which they fall. There is no proposition so monstrously untrue in morals or politics that we will not undertake to prove it, by something which shall sound like a logical demonstration, from admitted principles.

Mr. Mill argues, that if men are not inclined to plunder each other, government is unnecessary; and that, if they are so inclined, the powers of government, when intrusted to a small number of them, will necessarily be abused. Surely it is not by propounding dilemmas of this sort that we are likely to arrive at sound conclusions in any moral science. The whole question is a question of degree. If all men preferred the moderate approbation of their neighbours to any degree of wealth, or grandeur, or sensual pleasure, government would be unnecessary. If all men desired wealth so intensely as to be willing to brave the hatred of their fellow-creatures for sixpence, Mr. Mill's argument against monarchies and aristocracies would be true to the full extent. But the fact is, that all men have some desires which impel them to injure their neighbours, and some desires which impel them to benefit their neighbours. Now, if there were a community consisting of two classes of men, one of which should be principally influenced by the one set of motives, and the other by the other, government would clearly be necessary to restrain the class which was eager of plunder, and careless of reputation: and yet the powers of government might be safely intrusted to the class which was chiefly actuated by the love of approbation. Now, it might, with no small plausibility, be maintained, that, in many countries, there are two classes which, in some degree, answer to this description; that the poor compose the class which government is established to restrain: and the people of some property the class to which the powers of government may without danger be confided. It might be said, that a man who can barely earn a livelihood by severe labour, is under stronger temptations to pillage others than a man who enjoys many luxuries. It might be said, that a man who is lost in the crowd is less likely to have the fear of public opinion before his eyes, than a man whose station and mode of living rendered him conspicuous. We do not assert all this. We only say, that it was Mr. Mill's business to prove the contrary; and that, not having proved the contrary, he is not entitled to say, "that those principles which imply that government is at all necessary, imply that an aristocracy will make use of its power to defeat the end for which governments exist." This is not true, unless it be true that a rich man is as likely to vet the goods of his neighbours as a poor nd that a poor man is as likely to be

But we do not see that, by reasoning a priori on such subjects as these, it is possible to advance one single step. We know that every man has some desires which he can gratify only by hurting his neighbours, and some which he can gratify only by pleasing them. Mr. Mill has chosen only to look at one-half of human nature, and to reason on the motives which impel men to oppress and despoil others, as if they were the only motives by which men could possibly be influenced. We have already shown that, by taking the other half of the human character, and reasoning on it as if it were the whole, we can bring out a result diametrically opposite to that at which Mr. Mill has arrived. We can, by such a process, easily prove that any form of government is good, or that all government is superfluous.

We must now accompany Mr. Mill on the next stage of his argument. Does any combination of the three simple forms of government afford the requisite securities against the abuse of power? Mr. Mill complains that those who maintain the affirmative generally beg the question, and proceeds to settle the point by proving, after his fashion, that no combination of the three simple forms, or of any two of them, can possibly exist.

"From the principles which we have already laid down, it follows that, of the objects of human desire, and speaking more definitely, of the means to the ends of human desire, namely, wealth and power, each party will endeavour to obtain as much as possible.

"If any expedient presents itself to any of the supposed parties effectual to this end, and not opposed to any preferred object of pursuit, we may infer, with certainty, that it will be adopted. One effectual expedient is not more effectual than obvious. Any two of the parties, by combining may swallow up the third. That such combinations will take place, appears to be as certain as any thing which depends upon human will: because there are strong motives in favour of it, and none that can be conceived in opposition to it.. The mixture of three of the kinds of government, it is thus evident, cannot possibly exist.

a

.... It may be proper to inquire, whether union may not be possible of two of them. "Let us first suppose, that monarchy is united with aristocracy. Their power is equal or not equal. If it is not equal, it follows, as a necessary consequence, from the principles which we have already established, that the stronger will take from the weaker till it engrosses the whole. The only question, therefore, is, What will happen when the power is equal?

"In the first place, it seems impossible that such equality should ever exist. How is it to be established? or, by what criterion is it to be ascertained? If there is no such criterion, it must, in all cases, be the result of chance. If so, the chances against it are as infinity to one. The idea, therefore, is wholly chimerical and absurd.

"In this doctrine of the mixture of the simple forms of government is included the celebrated theory of the balance among the com