UNGUIDED EXPEDIENCY.

EVEN were the fundamental proposition of the expediency system not thus vitiated by the indefiniteness of its terms, it would still be vulnerable. Granting for the sake of argument, that the desideratum, "greatest happiness," is duly comprehended, its identity and nature agreed upon by all, and the direction in which it lies satisfactorily settled, there yet remains the unwarranted assumption that it is possible to determine empirically by what methods it may be achieved Experience daily proves that an uncertainty like that which exists respecting the specific ends to be obtained, exists respecting the right mode of attaining them when supposed to be known. Let us look at a few cases.

When it was enacted in Bavaria that no marriage should be allowed between those without capital, unless certain authorities could "see a reasonable prospect of the parties being able to provide for their children," it was intended to advance the public weal by checking improvident unions, and redundant population: a purpose most politicians will consider praiseworthy, and a provision which many will think well adapted to secure it. Nevertheless this apparently sagacious measure has by no means answered its end. Munich, the capital of the kingdom, half the births are illegitimate!

In

Those too were admirable motives, and cogent reasons, which led our Government to establish an armed force on the coast of Africa for the suppression of the slave trade. What

could be more essential to the "greatest happiness" than the annihilation of the abominable traffic? And how could forty ships of war, supported by an expenditure of £700,000 a year, fail to accomplish this? The results have, however, been anything but satisfactory. When the abolitionists of England advocated it, they little thought that such a measure instead of preventing would only "aggravate the horrors, without sensibly mitigating the extent of the traffic;" that it would generate fast-sailing slavers with decks one foot six inches apart, suffocation from close packing, miserable diseases, and a mortality of thirty-five per cent. They dreamed not that when hard pressed a slaver might throw a whole cargo of 500 negroes into the sea; nor that on a blockaded coast the disappointed chiefs would, as at Gallinas, put to death 200 men and women, and stick their heads on poles along shore, in sight of the squadron.* In short, they never anticipated having to plead, as they now do, for the abandonment of coercion.

The Spitalfields weavers afford us another case in point. No doubt the temptation which led them to obtain the Act of 1773, fixing a minimum of wages, was a strong one; and the anticipations of greater comfort to be secured by its enforcement must have seemed reasonable enough to all. Unfortunately, however, the weavers did not consider the consequences of being interdicted from working at reduced rates; and little expected that before 1793, some 4000 looms would be brought to a stand in consequence of the trade going elsewhere.

To mitigate distress having appeared needful for the production of the "greatest happiness," the English people have sanctioned upwards of one hundred Acts of Parliament having this end in view; each of them arising out of the failure or incompleteness of Acts previously passed. Men are never

*See Anti-Slavery Society's Report for 1847; and Evidence before Parliamentary Committee, 1848.

theless still discontented with the Poor Laws, and we are seemingly as far as ever from satisfactory settlement of them.

But why cite individual cases? Does not the experience of all nations testify to the futility of these empirical attempts at the acquisition of happiness? What is the statute-book but a record of such unhappy guesses? or history but a narrative of their unsuccessful issues? And what forwarder are we now? Is not our Government as busy still as though the work of law-making commenced but yesterday? Nearly every parliamentary proceeding is a tacit confession of incompetence. There is scarcely a bill introduced but is entitled "An Act to amend an Act." The "Whereas" of almost every preamble heralds an account of the miscarriage of previous legislation.

The expediency-philosophy, however, ignores this world. full of facts. Though men have so constantly been balked in their attempts to secure, by legislation, any desired constituent of that complex whole, "greatest happiness," it continues to place confidence in the unaided judgments of statesmen. It asks no guide; it possesses no eclectic principle; but it assumes that after an inspection of the aggregate phenomena of national life, governments are qualified to devise such measures as shall be "expedient." It considers the interpretation of human nature so easy, the constitution of the social organism so simple, the causes of a people's conduct so obvious, that a general inspection can give to "collective wisdom" the insight requisite for law-making.

If, without any previous investigation of the properties of terrestrial matter, Newton had proceeded at once to study the dynamics of the solar system, and after years spent in contemplation of it and in setting down the distances, sizes, times of revolution, inclinations of axes, forms of orbits, perturbations, &c., of its component bodies, had set himself to digest this accumulated mass of observations, and to educe a physical interpretation of planetary motions, he might have cogitated to all eternity without arriving at the truth.

But futile as such a method of research would have been, it would have been less futile than the attempt to find out the principles of public polity, by an unguided examination of that intricate combination-society. Considering that men as yet so imperfectly understand man—the instrument by which, and the material on which, laws are to act— and that a knowledge of the unit-man, is but a first step to the comprehension of the mass-society, it seems obvious that to educe from the complicated phenomena presented by humanity at large, a true philosophy of social life, and to found thereon a code of rules for the obtainment of "greatest happiness" is a task beyond the ability of any finite mind.

THE MORAL-SENSE DOCTRINE.

HAD we no other inducement to eat than that arising from the prospect of certain advantages to be thereby obtained, it is scarcely probable that our bodies would be so well cared for as now. One can quite imagine that were we deprived of that punctual monitor-appetite, and left to the guidance of some reasoned code of rules, such rules, were they never so philosophical, and the benefits of obeying them never so obvious, would form but a very inefficient substitute. Or, instead of that powerful affection by which men are led to nourish and protect their offspring, did there exist merely an abstract opinion that it is proper or necessary to maintain the population of the globe, it is questionable whether the annoyance, anxiety, and expense, of providing for a posterity, would not so far exceed the anticipated good, as to involve a rapid extinction of the species. And if, in addition to these needs of the body and of the race, all other requirements of our nature were similarly consigned to the sole care of the intellect were knowledge, property, freedom, reputation, friends, sought only at its dictation-then would our investigations be so perpetual, our estimates so complex, our decisions so difficult, that life would be wholly occupied in the collection of evidence and the balancing of probabilities. Under such an arrangement the utilitarian philosophy would indeed have strong argument in nature; for it would be simply applying to society, that system of governance by appeal to calculated final results, which already ruled the individual.