Chapter II.

The Individualism of the Early Utilitarians.

I.

The early Utilitarians had much to say about “the individual." But for them the individual was an abstraction. Jeremy Bentham and James Mill were not interested at all in real individuals or individuality. Bentham was looking for a philosophy of legal reform and for a safe and businesslike government. James Mill was looking for general principles on which an objective science of government and economics and psychology might be based. Bowring's remark that "the further men wander from simplicity the further they are from truth" is typical of their point of view.' For method they turned to the sciences. Mathematics, physics, and astronomy were their chief guides. They used the method that had proved so fruitful in these fields, namely that of. trying to explain complex phenomena in terms of the simple behaviour of simple units, regarded as being practically alike and having their relation to each other determined by a few simple laws. It was this method that had shown its value in chemistry in the shape of the atomic theory. And it is significant that Bentham had studied chemistry under Fordyce, and James Mill was a friend of Thomas Thompson.

This was James Mill's approach to psychology, where the atoms were ideas, connected by the laws of association.

Caroline Fox, Memoirs of Old Friends, p. 24.

place Mill with regard to certain schools of thought or to try to show his relation to a hypothetical conflict between the principles of liberty and equality, or individualism and socialism. It is rather to ask what were Mill's own concrete problems?-how did he see them?-how, in his own terms, did he attempt to solve them? Its thesis is that the expanding idea of individuality, and a growing concern for individuality in society (which was directly related to his own growing personality) played an important part in Mill's thought and is essential to the understanding of his social and political philosophy.

Chapter II.

The Individualism of the Early Utilitarians.

I.

The early Utilitarians had much to say about "the individual." But for them the individual was an abstraction. Jeremy Bentham and James Mill were not interested at all in real individuals or individuality. Bentham was looking for a philosophy of legal reform and for a safe and businesslike government. James Mill was looking for general principles on which an objective science of government and economics and psychology might be based. Bowring's remark that "the further men wander from simplicity the further they are from truth" is typical of their point of view.' For method they turned to the sciences. Mathematics, physics, and astronomy were their chief guides. They used the method that had proved so fruitful in these fields, namely that of trying to explain complex phenomena in terms of the simple behaviour of simple units, regarded as being practically alike and having their relation to each other determined by a few simple laws. It was this method that had shown its value in chemistry in the shape of the atomic theory. And it is significant that Bentham had studied chemistry under Fordyce, and James Mill was a friend of Thomas Thompson.

This was James Mill's approach to psychology, where the atoms were ideas, connected by the laws of association.

Caroline Fox, Memoirs of Old Friends, p. 24.

Says James Mill at the beginning of the Analysis of the Human Mind:

"Philosophical inquiries into the human mind have for their main and ultimate object, the exposition of its more complex phenomena.

"It is necessary, however, that the simple should be premised because they are the elements of which the complex are formed; and because a distinct knowledge of the elements is indispensable to an accurate conception of that which is compounded of them."

Their social inquiry was characterized by the same method. Here, again, they tried to explain complex phenomena in terms of simple units, connected by simple laws. The atom here was the "individual." But they were not particularly interested in the individuals they met on the street. "The individual" was for them simply the atom in their social chemistry, the "element" out of which the "complex" is formed. He was an abstraction convenient for the purposes of explanation.

One illustration from Bentham will be sufficient to show his use of the idea of the individual. In his discussion of equality, he tries to demonstrate the advantage of equality of possessions. He lays down five propositions:

(1) "Each portion of wealth is connected with a corresponding portion of human happiness.”

(2) “Of two individuals possessed of unequal fortunes, he who possesses greatest wealth will possess greatest happiness."

(3) "The excess of happiness on the part of the most wealthy will not be so great as the excess of his wealth."

(4) "For the same reason, the greater the disproportion between the two masses of wealth, the less the probability that there exists an equal disproportion between the masses of happi-. Dess."

(s) "The more nearly the actual proportion approaches to equality, the greater will be the total mass of happiness.”'

'James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, Vol. I.

We have here no suspicion that the happiness may depend partly on the individual characteristics of the "individuals." For the purposes of his argument he had to take his “individuals" in the mass, and to regard them to all intents and purposes as being exactly alike.

Furthermore these atoms are regarded as being connected by simple types of relationship. And this brings us to the second important postulate of the early Utilitarians. They went on the assumption that individuals are animated in all their actions by self-interest. Where the justification for this doctrine came from, it is fairly easy to see. Take the case of Bentham, who was a very altruistic and good natured person. In his efforts for the reform of the law and his other projects (his scheme for a model prison for one), he started out with the idea that everybody was like himself, and that people would only have to be shown a better way of doing things in order to adopt the better way. But he met with opposition all down the line. He came to feel that his chief enemy was not ignorance, but organized vested interests opposed to reform. The blind admiration of the status quo exhibited by Blackstone and Lord Eldon, the information James Mill gave him on the art of packing juries, his own experiences in dealing with king and parliament-such things convinced him that there was a great conspiracy on the part of the "sinister interests" against enlightenment and reform. "Judge and Co." was the name which he and his followers gave to the combination of the government and the lawyers and the judges. The Church, and the vested rights it protected, he called "Jug," short for "Juggernaut." The failure of the panoptican scheme and the refusal of the government to repay the money which he had advanced in good faith to buy a site for his model prison made him particularly bitter. The people he had to deal with were out, he found, each man for himself. Self-interest, conceived as a universal motive, seemed to explain their actions