far from popular,-prudence would have dictated the keeping them out of sight, and the softening them down as much as possible.

"Humiliation would have been the effect produced by them on those to whom they appeared true, indignation on those to whom they appeared false. But, as I have observed, men have not yet learned to tune their feelings in unison with the voice of morality in these points. They feel more pride in being accounted strong than resentment at being called unjust; or rather, the imputation of injustice appears flattering rather than otherwise when coupled with the consideration of its cause. I feel it in my own experience; but if I, listed as I am as the professed, and hitherto the only advocate in my own country in the cause of justice, set a less value on justice than is its due, what can I expect from the general run of men? Bentham's appreciation of the weaker side of human character comes out not less clearly in the following remark. "How, then," he asks, "shall we concentrate the approbation of the people and obviate their prejudices?

"1

"One main object of the plan is to effectuate a reduction, and that a mighty one, in the contributions of the people. The amount of the reduction for each nation should be stipulated in the treaty; and even previous to the signature of it, laws for the purpose might be prepared in each nation, and presented to every other, ready to be enacted as soon as the treaty should be ratified in each State.

"By these means the mass of the people, the part most

1 Ut supra, pp. 338, 339.

exposed to be led away by prejudices, would not be sooner apprised of the measure than they would feel the relief it brought them. They would see it was for their advantage it was calculated, and that it could not be calculated for any other purpose." 1

Bentham's scheme of organisation embraces only the judicial element. "Establish a common tribunal, the necessity for war no longer follows from difference of opinion. Just or unjust, the decision of the arbiters will save the credit, the honour of the contending party.” 2

He makes no adequate provision either for the legislative or the executive functions of the State. For both he is disposed to trust to the force of public opinion.

"There might,

perhaps, be no harm in regulating, as a last resource, the contingent to be furnished by the several States for enforcing the decrees of the Court. But the necessity for the employment of this resource would, in all human probability, be superseded for ever by having recourse to the much more simple and less burdensome expedient of introducing into the instrument by which such Court was instituted, a clause guaranteeing the liberty of the press in each State, in such sort, that the diet might find no obstacle to its giving, in every State, to its decrees, and to every paper whatever which it might think proper to sanction with its signature, the most extensive and unlimited circulation." 3 It is hard to see why Bentham, who had so low an opinion of international morality and disinterestedness, should have expected so much more from the

1 Wheaton, ut supra, p. 340.

3 Ib., pp. 342, 343.

2 Ib., p. 339.

action of opinion in international affairs than it yields in national affairs. He would himself have regarded as a visionary any man who proposed to dispense with a national executive; and it is not surprising that his proposal to dispense with an international executive should have been treated, even by so ardent an admirer as Mr Wheaton, as a "rêve d'un homme de bien." We must demur, however, when Mr Wheaton goes on to say: "This proposition of Bentham to abolish war for ever between the nations of Europe, is the more remarkable as it was prepared just before the breaking out of a war, the most destructive in its consequences, and attended with the most flagrant violations of the positive law of nations of any which has occurred in modern times."1 If the inference which Mr Wheaton desires to draw from the coincidence be that Bentham's scheme failed to avert war, the reply is obvious: Bentham's scheme was not adopted; and though, what subsequently occurred may prove the folly of those who refused to listen to Bentham, it cannot prove Bentham's folly.

I have dwelt with pleasure on this almost forgotten treatise, because, from the shallowness of Bentham's philosophical system, there has been a tendency, both on the Continent and in Scotland, to attach less value to him than was his due as a practical law reformer; and this tendency has been increased by the indiscreet claims to originality which his English worshippers have so often advanced on his behalf. In advocating the compulsory registration of deeds, the institution of a public prosecutor of crimes, and the fusion of law and

1 Wheaton, ut supra, p. 343.

equity, he was proposing as novelties what both Continentals and Scotchmen had practised for ages.

The efforts of the Peace Societies and of the various Peace Congresses which they have assembled from time to time have generally been limited to the subject of arbitration; and from Bentham's time to our own few attempts have been made to organise the body cosmopolitan, and to give continuous life to it. Of the important contribution which Dr Bluntschli made to the literature of the subject I shall have occasion to speak hereafter; and the only other work which appears to claim our attention in this place is the remarkable appeal which has just been made to the sovereigns of Europe "by one of themselves."1

The work is conceived in a lofty and generous spirit, which, though no doubt mainly due to the personal qualities of the author, may in some measure be ascribed to that cosmopolitan character which, as I have elsewhere 2 indicated, belongs to those whose family relations necessarily carry their sympathies beyond the boundaries of the States to which they are politically attached. So long as the principle of hereditary monarchy is maintained, and royal marriages are limited to royal families, we shall have a class of persons who, other things being equal, are in a more favourable position for dealing with international questions than the citizens of separate States; and on this ground, an interest attaches to this work beyond any other of a similar kind since that which its author, rather too confidently, perhaps, ascribes to Henry IV. and Queen Elizabeth.3 I have

1 Mission Actuelle des Souverains. 2 Vol. i. p. 208.

Par l'un d'eux.

3 He does not even mention Sully's name!

said" things being equal;" and in the case of the royal families of Europe intermarriage does not appear to have produced either the physical or intellectual evils which are often traced to it in families in which hereditary disease exists. In both respects their members compare well with any corresponding number of persons taken from the best classes of subjects. Another circumstance which tells in their favour for this purpose is that they are still mostly bred to the profession of arms, and enjoy much popularity with the military class. Pacific proposals emanating from them are consequently less distasteful to soldiers than when they come from civilians; and now that the career of personal ambition in the direction of territorial aggrandisement is for the most part shut against them, they have ceased to be specially susceptible to the war-fever by which, from time to time, we are all affected. Their brothermonarch tells them, truly, that, as matters now stand, there is no class whose interests are so much imperilled by war; and their more thoughtful members can now scarcely fail to perceive that it is only by elevating international conceptions of morality in themselves and others, and thus contributing to bring international organisation up to the point which national organisation has reached, that they can hope again to be hailed with sincerity as benefactors to mankind. Here is the picture of their actual position, as their candid brother presents it to them:

Aujourd'hui, plus nominaux que réels, les souverains ne sont que les gardiens d'une trève armée qui ne leur permet pas les œuvres de la paix.

1 P. 2.