In all Bentham's ethical and political writings the doctrine of utility is the leading and per vading principle, and his favorite vehicle for its expression in the phrase "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," which Bentham at tributed to Priestley (q.v.), but which really dates back to Hutcheson's (q.v.) Enquiry Con cerning the Original of Our ideas of Virtues or Moral Good, which appeared in 1725. "In this phrase," Bentham says, "I saw delineated for the first time a plain as well as a true standard for whatever is right or wrong, useful, useless, or mischievous in human conduct, whether in the field of morals or of politics." It need scarcely be remarked that the phrase affords no guidance as to how the benevolent end is to be attained, and is no more than a quasi-•on crete expressiOn of the objects of true benevo knee. In considering how to compass these ob jects, Bentham arrived at various conclusions, which he advocated irrespective of the conditions of society in his day. He demanded nothing less than the immediate remodeling of the gov ernment, and the codification and reconstruction of the laws; and insisted, among other changes, on those which came at a later day to be popu larly demanded as the points of the 'charter'— viz., universal suffrage, annual parliaments, vote by ballot, and paid representatives. However im possible some of these schemes then were, it can not be denied that Bentham did more to rouse the spirit of modern reform and improvement in laws and politics than any other writer of his day. Many of his ideals have been and many
more are in the course of being slowly realized. The end and object of them all was the general welfare, and his chief error—apart from his over estimate of the value of some changes which he proposed—lay in conceiving that organic changes are possible through any other process than that of growth and modification of the popular wants and sentiments. It was this error that led the philosopher, in his closet in London, to devise codes of laws for Russia (through which coun try he made a tour in 1785). America, and India, the adoption of which would have been equiv alent to revolutions in those countries, and then bitterly to bewail the folly of mankind when his schemes were rejected. In ethics, as in politics, he pressed his doctrines to extremes. See UTILITARIANISM ; HEDONISM.
By the death of his father in 1792 Bentham sueceeded to property in London and to farms in Essex, yielding from £500 to £600 a year. By a life of temperance and industry, with great self complacency, in the society of a few devoted friends, Bentham attained to the age of S4. Con sult: C. B. R. Kent, The English Radicals (Lon don, 1899) ; W. Graham, English Political Phi losophy, from Hobbes to Maine (London, 1899) ; J. S. Mill, "Bentham," in London and Westmin ster Review (August, 1838) ; L. Stephen, Eng lish Utilitarians (London and New York, 1900) ; Albee, History of English Utilitarianism (Lon don, 1902).