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    tions are estimated ; and , in computing the effects of single actions , it must be felt , that there is at least the strongest a priori case against all violations of affections generally virtuous : for the deviation cannot be allowed , without a poignant resistance to habitual sympathies , and an enfeebling of their power for future

    use . It was convenient to Mr . Bentham to get rid of all trial by motives , and to substitute the trial by consequences . Mankind in general treat benevolence in the former way ; and they refuse the name to every act performed for the sake of reputation , or other outward recompense , be the consequences what they may .

    As Mr . Bentham knew of no other than these very rewards , popularly repudiated from the higher departments of virtue , he would have been obliged , unless he had set aside this mode of trial , to eject benevolence entirely from his system . By making the term to mean ' the desire to contribute to the happiness of others , even though it be with a mere view to our own credit / he

    saves the word , but sacrifices the thing , and brings all virtue whatever under the category of prudence . There is indeed a passage here and there in which prudence and benevolence are well distinguished ; as the following : in order to understand which , it is necessary to premise that Mr . Bentham makes a twofold division of prudence ; into self-regarding , by which a man economises his own pleasures wisely , and extra-regarding , by which he consults those of others as instrumental to his own : and

    a twofold division of benevolence ; into negative , which abstains from inflicting pain , and positive , which confers pleasure on others . c Negative beneficence is a virtue , in so far as any mischief , which ,

    without consideration , mi g ht have been produced , is by consideration forborne to be produced . In so far as it is by the consideration of the effect which the mischievous action might have upon a man ' s own comfort , the virtue is prudence—self-regarding prudence ; in so far as it is by the consideration of the effect which the mischievous action

    might have upon the comfort of any other person , the virtue is benevolence . '—Vol . ii . p . 261 . Nothing can be more just than this assertion ; that "benevolence consists in conduct prompted by consideration for others' feelings ,

    and that , in proportion as the idea of our own good intrudes , it is metamorphosed into prudence . Unhappily , however , Mr . Bentham repeatedly affirms that the regard to the welfare of our fellow-beings is in itself utterly powerless , and that the idea of good to self is the sole source of human action : for instance :

    • Dream not that men will move their little finger to serve you , unless their advantage in so doing be obvious to them . Men never did so , and never will , vfhile human nature is made of its present materials/—

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    68 ft Beniham ' i Deontology .

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    Vol . ii . p . 133 ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 622, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/18/