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_August_ 20. 1831.
GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE.----HOBBISM.
O. P. Q. in the Morning Chronicle is a clever fellow. He is for the
greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number, and for the
longest possible time! So am I; so are you, and every one of us, I will
venture to say, round the tea-table. First, however, what does O. P. Q.
mean by the word _happiness_? and, secondly, how does he propose to make
other persons agree in _his_ definition of the term? Don't you see the
ridiculous absurdity of setting up _that_ as a principle or motive of
action, which is, in fact, a necessary and essential instinct of our very
nature--an inborn and inextinguishable desire? How can creatures
susceptible of pleasure and pain do otherwise than desire happiness? But,
_what_ happiness? That is the question. The American savage, in scalping
his fallen enemy, pursues _his_ happiness naturally and adequately. A
Chickasaw, or Pawnee Bentham, or O. P. Q., would necessarily hope for the
most frequent opportunities possible of scalping the greatest possible
number of savages, for the longest possible time. There is no escaping this
absurdity, unless you come back to a standard of reason and duty,
imperative upon our merely pleasurable sensations.
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