Thus,both Bentham and the reformers generally started --not from abstract principles,but from the assault upon particular abuses.This is the characteristic of the whole English movement,and gives the meaning of their claim to be 'practical.'The Utilitarians were the reformers on the old lines;and their philosophy meant simply a desire to systematise the ordinary common-sense arguments.The philosophy congenial to this vein is the philosophy which appeals to experience.Locke had exploded 'innate ideas.'They denounced 'intuitions,'or beliefs which might override experience as 'innate ideas'in a new dress;and the attempt to carry out this view systematically became the distinctive mark of the whole school.Bentham accepted,though he did little to elaborate,this doctrine.That task remained for his disciples.
But the tendency is shown by his view of a rival version of Radicalism.
Bentham,as we have seen,regarded the American Declaration of independence as so much 'jargon.'He was entirely opposed to the theory of the 'rights of man,'and therefore to the 'ideas of 1789.'From that theory the revolutionary party professed to deduce their demands for universal suffrage,the levelling of all privileges,and the absolute supremacy of the people.Yet Bentham,repudiating the premises,came to accept the conclusion.His Constitutional Code scarcely differs from the ideal of the Jacobins',except in pushing the logic further.The machinery by which he proposed to secure that the so-called rulers should become really the servants of the people was more thoroughgoing and minutely worked out than that of any democratic constitution that has ever been adopted.How was it that two antagonist theories led to identical results;and that the 'rights of man,'absurd in philosophy,represented the ideal state of things in practice?
The general answer may be that political theories are not really based upon philosophy.The actual method is to take your politics for granted on the one side and your philosophy for granted on the other,and then to prove their necessary connection.But it is,at any rate,important to see what was the nature of the philosophical assumptions implicitly taken for granted by Bentham.
The 'rights of man'doctrine confounds a primary logical can on with a statement of fact.Every political theory must be based upon facts as well as upon logic.Any reasonable theory about politics must no doubt give a reason for inequality and a reason,too,for equality.The maxim that all men were,or ought to be,'equal'asserts correctly that there must not be arbitrary differences.Every inequality should have its justification in a reasonable system.But when this undeniable logical canon is taken to prove that men actually are equal,there is an obvious begging of the question.
In point of fact,the theorists immediately proceeded to disfranchise half the race on account of sex,and a third of the remainder on account of infancy.
They could only amend the argument by saying that all men were equal in so far as they possessed certain attributes.But those attributes could only be determined by experience,or,as Bentham would have put it,by an appeal to 'utility.'It is illogical,said the anti-slavery advocate,to treat men differently On account of the colour of their skins.No doubt it is illogical if,in fact,the difference of colour does not imply a difference of the powers which fit a man for the enjoyment of certain rights.We may at least grant that the burden of proof should be upon those who would disfranchise all red-haired men.But this is because experience shows that the difference of colour does not mark a relevant difference.We cannot say,a priori,whether the difference between a negro and a white man may not be so great as to imply incapacity for enjoyment of equal rights.The black skin might --for anything a mere logician can say --indicate the mind of a chimpanzee.The case against slavery does not rest on the bare fact that negroes and whites both belong to the class 'man,'but on the fact that the negro has powers and sensibilities which fit him to hold property,to form marriages,to learn his letters,and so forth.But that fact is undeniably to be proved,not from the bare logic,but from observation of the particular case.
Bentham saw with perfect clearness that sound political theory requires a basis of solid fact.The main purpose of his whole system was to carry out that doctrine thoroughly.His view is given vigorously in the 'Anarchical Fallacies'--a minute examination of the French Declaration of Rights in 1791.His argument is of merciless length,and occasionally so minute as to sound like quibbling.The pith,however,is clear enough.'All men are born and remain free and equal in respect of rights'are the first words of the Declaration.Nobody is 'born free,'retorts Bentham.Everybody is born,and long remains,a helpless child.All men born free!Absurd and miserable nonsense!Why,you are complaining in the same breath that nearly everybody is a slave.(97)To meet this objection,the words might be amended by substituting 'ought to be'for 'is.'This,however,on Bentham's showing,at once introduces the conception of utility,and therefore leads to empirical considerations.
The proposition,when laid down as a logical necessity,claims to be absolute.