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النشر الإلكتروني

SOUTHERN REVIEW.

NO. XIV.

AUGUST, 1831.

ART. I.-Principles of Legislation; from the MS. of Jeremy Bentham, Bencher of Lincoln's Inn. By M. DUMONT. Member of the Representative and Sovereign Council of Geneva. Translated from the second corrected and enlarged edition; with Notes and a Biographical Notice of Jeremy Bentham and of M. Dumont. By JOHN NEAL. Boston. 1831.

We do not know whether the publication of this book is to be considered as any proof of the growing popularity of Bentham and Utilitarianism in the United States. But sure we areif we know any thing of the state of public opinion in this country that it will do nothing to increase that popularity. The author professes himself, every where, a devoted admirer of his "guide, philosopher and friend," yet it is difficult to conceive a more ridiculous figure than he makes him cut in his pages. It is just such a portrait as a very wicked or very simple valet de chambre might be expected to paint of a very absurd hero. If Sancho Panza, for instance, had written the Life of Don Quixote, with that odd indescribable mixture of reverence and suspicion which runs through his conversations with the knight, it would have been much of a-piece with the biographical sketch before us. Mr. John Neal, indeed, prostrates himself devoutly before his idol-exalts and magnifies him above all Greek and Roman fame-pronounces him, as Lucretius does Epicurus, the great light of the world, and its redeemer from spiritual bondage-yet when we survey the whole picture together, it is hard to believe that there is not a good deal of waggery in these lofty expressions of homage. We VOL. VII. NO. 14. 34

do not think there is a Life in Diogenes Laertius-and that is saying much—which makes philosophy, in the person of one of her most renowned votaries, so despicable and repulsive.

The style in which the author tells his story is full of a quaint pedantic affectation of simplicity. He is as confiding and communicative as "downright Shippen or as old Montaigne." He talks to his reader as if he were writing an epistle to one of Jeremy's private secretaries, and as if the world had nothing to think of but the "High Priest of Legislation and the Lord Bacon of the age." The excessive importance which he attaches to every thing connected with the Reformer and his dogmas redounds, of course, upon his humble self. But he does not trust to distant inference for his share in the honours of the school. His self-conceit is fully commensurate with his admiration of his betters, and he takes care to garnish his panegyric upon his master with an abundance of garrulous egotism. Nobody understands Bentham but Mr. John Neal-"the readers (and the writers) of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, Westminster and North-American Reviews will now have, what they never had before-an opportunity of knowing the truth and the whole truth, about the character and opinious, the philosophy and the faith of a man," &c. His object, as he announces it in his preface, is twofold. By the first part of his work, "which is nothing more than a familiar biographical sketch," his readers are to be" brought acquainted with the man Jeremy Bentham, and by the last, which may be regarded as an abridgment of his whole system of philosophy, with the philanthropist, the lawgiver and the statesman." We hope he knows more about “the man Jeremy," than he seems to understand of his translator's language. At page 271, we observe the following naïve confession of ignorance, accompanied by what appears to us, a very sufficient exemplification of it:-" Thus every act of cruelty pro'duced by a passion, the principle of which is in every heart ' and from which every body may suffer, may cause an alarm 'which will continue until the punishment of the offender has ' removed the danger from the side of injustice.

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*." Upon which we have the following note:"The meaning of this I have not been able to make out, with 'any sort of satisfaction to myself. It reads thus in the original, fera éprouver une alarme qui continuera jusqu'à ce que 'la punition du coupable ait transporté le danger du côté de l'in'justice, de l'inimitié cruelle." Whatever we may think of the style, the meaning of this passage is clear enough from the context. Jeremy, or rather Dumont, is speaking of the terror which the unrestrained indulgence of certain passions would inspire.

This alarm, he says, will continue until the punishment of one who has sinned through the influence of such passions, has inspired him, and those like him, with fear, in their turn-until "injustice and malignant hatred " are made, by the law, to feel some of the terror they occasion; literally, "until the punishment of the guilty has transferred the danger to the side of injustice," &c. It is strange that any one should set up for an interpreter of French who does not know the effect of the du in the phrase, du côté de, and it is lamentable to reflect, that we, the uninitiated, have no other means of understanding the inestimable Benthamee, but the translation of a translation by such a druggerman as Mr. John Neal.

The drift of this attempt upon the Life of Jeremy Bentham is thus explained by the biographer himself:

"Such a portrait is now to be attempted for the lovers of such biography. It will be for them to say whether a magnificent picture, which, by resembling every body, would be a portrait of nobody, is worthier of admiration. It may be wanting in dignity--I hope it may-but of this the reader may be sure: whatever it wants in dignity shall be made up in truth; and in such truth too as will soon be sought after with deep solicitude, not only here, and in the country of our philosopher, but throughout the whole earth.

"After a few preliminary observations, I shall take up a body of memoranda, now lying before me, which were made every night, and before I slept, after we had passed the evening together, and transferred them, with as little change as possible, directly to these pages. They, therefore, who wish to be acquainted with the lawgiver and the philosopher, and with him only, need not throw away one single hour upon this part of the book, which is intended for such, and for such only as care to be acquainted with the man, but proceed forthwith to the second part, where Bentham and Dumont are occupied with the great business of morals and legislation." pp. 14, 15.

We shall follow the author in the course he has marked outfirst, saying a few words about the character of Jeremy Bentham, and then discussing, with all possible brevity, his pretensions to the admiration which is challenged for him by his biographer.

This great luminary of the age was born, it seems, in the year 1747-8. He was the son of an attorney who was, according to Jeremy himself, "a weak man," and to whose mechanical predilection for his own profession, we owe the light which his son has been able to shed upon the philosophy of jurisprudence. To be sure, misfortune-which has ever been the best nurse of genius-had its share in this result; for the man who was destined to reform the whole body of the law, does not seem to have been fitted to excel in the most important part of

it, viz. the application of its principles to practice. "On a par'ticular occasion, (said he to Mr. Neal,) I gave a legal opinion 'which turned out not to be law, because the law had been alter'ed without my knowledge or consent. I refused to give an 'opinion after this." p. 61. Whereupon, his biographer remarks, with great simplicity, that "he could not help imagin'ing as he went through the history of this early error, how 'much of his subsequent views of the law. the lawyers, and the 'judges of England, might be owing to this very incident. * * Most of Mr. Bentham's peculiar views, 'peculiar habits and peculiar figures; I believe I might say all, may be traced in the same way to incidents connected with his 'youth-his hatred of English law and of English lawyers, of Blackstone, of Mansfield and of Eldon--to his fortunate (qu.] 'failure in his profession. Other facts of the same nature will 'appear in the further development of his character." 61.

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His first work was an expression of his very natural, if not very reasonable grudge against these odious objects. He made, it seems, while yet a very young man (he was in his 28th year) “a masterly attack" on Blackstone's Commentaries. Lord Mansfield, if we are to believe Mr. Neal, or rather Bentham himself, used to speak of this diatribe in the highest terms, though on Blackstone's being asked if he intended to reply to it, his answer was "no, not if it were better written." His dislike for the author of the Commentaries discovered itself at a very early period. He related to his biographer the following story, "to be repeated in Yankee-land."

"April 4. Mr. B. relates a story of Blackstone, to be repeated in Yankee-land. . As early as sixteen,' said he, 'I began to query Blackstone, my Gamaliel, while I was sitting at his feet. He was a stiff, pompous, proud quiz-Mansfield couldn't bear him. I told you, I believe, that he, M., had the whole of the Fragment read to him, and liked it mightily. When Blackstone was Vinerian professor at Queen's College, Oxford, he sent to Dr. Brown, provost of the College, to know what distinction should be awarded to him, or how he should be ranked. Tell him, said Brown, who was a shrewd fellow, tell him he may walk before my beadle,-the beadle that preceded him with a mace, when he walked out. Mr. Eden the writer on penal law,) afterwards Lord Ackland, and Blackstone did something together once, which Bentham approved. Out of this grew something of Mr. Bentham's, about which Blackstone wrote him, complimenting him rather highly." pp. 113, 114.

In 1788, he published his "Views of the Hard-Labour Bill, with observations relative to Penal Jurisprudence in general,” and nine years after his celebrated "Defence of Usury." In 1789 appeared the original quarto edition of MORALS and LEGISLATION, "the ground work of the author's whole fame with

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