University of Virginia Library

III. THE PANOPTICON.

The crash of the French revolution was now to change the whole course of European politics, and to bring philosophical jurists face to face with a long series of profoundly important problems. Bentham's attitude during the early stages of the revolution and the first war period is significant, and may help to elucidate some characteristics of the Utilitarian movement. Revolutions are the work of passion: the product of a social and political condition in which the masses are permeated with discontent, because the social organs have ceased to discharge their functions. They are not ascribable to the purely intellectual movement alone, though it is no doubt an essential factor. The revolution came in any case because the social order was out of joint, not simply because Voltaire or Rousseau or Diderot had preached destructive doctrines. The doctrines of the 'rights of man' are obvious enough to have presented themselves to many minds at many periods. The doctrines became destructive because the old traditions were shaken, and the traditions were shaken because the state of things to which they corresponded had become intolerable. The French evolution meant (among other things) that in the mind of the French peasant there had accumulated a vast deposit of bitter enmity against the noble who had become a mere parasite upon the labouring population, retaining, as Arthur Young said, privileges for himself, and leaving poverty to the lower classes. The peasant had not read Rousseau; he had read nothing. But when his discontent began to affect the educated classes, men who had read Rousseau found in his works the dialect most fitted to express the growing indignation. Rousseau's genius had devised the appropriate formula; for Rousseau's sensibility had made him prescient of the rising storm. What might be a mere commonplace for speculative students suddenly became the warcry in a social upheaval. In England, as I have tried to show, there was no such popular sentiment behind the political theories: and reformers were content with measures which required no appeal to absolute rights and general principles. Bentham was no Rousseau; and the last of men to raise a warcry. Passion and sentimentalism were to him a nuisance. His theories were neither suggested nor modified by the revolution. He looked on with curious calmness, as though the revolutionary disturbances were rather a transitory interruption to the progress of reform than indicative of a general convulsion. His own position was isolated. He had no strong reforming party behind him. The Whigs, his main friends, were powerless, discredited, and themselves really afraid to support any vigorous policy. They had in the main to content themselves with criticising the warlike policy which, for the time, represented the main current of national sentiment. Bentham shared many of their sympathies. He hated the abstract 'rights of man' theory as heartily as Burke. It was to him a 'hodge-podge' of fallacies. On the other hand, he was absolutely indifferent to the apotheosis of the British Constitution constructed by Burke's imagination. He cared nothing for history in general, or regarded it, from a Voltairean point of view, as a record of the follies and crimes of mankind. He wished to deal with political, and especially with legal, questions in a scientific spirit -- but 'scientific' would mean not pure mathematics but pure empiricism. He was quite as far from Paine's abstract methods as from Burke's romantic methods. Both of them, according to him, were sophists: though one might prefer logical and the other sentimental sophistries. Dumont, when he published (1802) his versions of Bentham, insisted upon this point, Nothing, he says, was more opposed to the trenchant dogmatism of the abstract theorists about 'rights of man' and 'equality' than Bentham's thoroughly scientific procedure (Discours Préliminaire). Bentham's intellectual position in this respect will require further consideration hereafter. All his prejudices and sympathies were those of the middle class from which he sprang. He was no democrat: he had no particular objection to the nobility, though he preferred Shelburne to the king's friends or to the Whig aristocracy. The reforms which he advocated were such as might be adopted by any enlightened legislator, not only by Shelburne but even by Blackstone. He had only, he thought, to convert a few members of parliament to gain the acceptance for a rational criminal code. It had hardly even occurred to him that there was anything wrong in the general political order, though he was beginning to find out that it was not so modifiable as he could have wished by the new ideas which he propounded.

Bentham's activity during the first revolutionary war corresponded to this position. The revolution, whatever else it might do, obviously gave a chance to amateur legislators. There was any amount of work to be done in the way of codifying and reforming legislative systems. The deviser of Utopias had such an opening as had never occurred in the world's history. Lord Lansdowne, on the 3rd January 1789, expresses his pleasure at hearing that Bentham intends to 'take up the cause of the people in France.'[60] Bentham, as we have seen, was already known to some of the French leaders, and he was now taking time by the forelock. He sent to the Abbé Morellet a part of his treatise on Political Tactics, hoping to have it finished by the time of the meeting of the States General.[61] This treatise, civilly accepted by Morellet, and approved with some qualifications by Bentham's counsellors, Romilly, Wilson, and Trail, was an elaborate account of the organisation and procedure of a legislative assembly, founded chiefly on the practice of the House of Commons. It was published in 1816 by Dumont in company with Anarchic Fallacies, a vigorous exposure of the Declaration of Rights, which Bentham had judiciously kept on his shelf. Had the French known of it, he remarks afterwards, they would have been little disposed to welcome him.[62] An elaborate scheme for the organisation of the French judiciary was suggested by a report to the National Assembly, and published in March 1790. In 1791, Bentham offered to go to France himself in order to establish a prison on his new scheme (to be mentioned directly), and become 'gratuitously the gaoler thereof,'[63] The Assembly acknowledged his 'ardent love of humanity,' and ordered an extract from his scheme to be printed for their instruction. The tactics actually adopted by the French revolutionists for managing assemblies and their methods of executing justice form a queer commentary on the philosopher who, like Voltaire's Mamres in the White Bull, continued to 'meditate profoundly' in placid disregard of facts. He was in fact proposing that the lava boiling up in a volcanic eruption should arrange itself entirely according to his architectural designs. But his proposal to become a gaoler during the revolution reaches the pathetic by its amiable innocence. On 26th August 1792, Bentham was one of the men upon whom the expiring Assembly, anxious to show its desire of universal fraternity, conferred the title of citizen. With Bentham were joined Priestley, Paine, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Washington, and others. The September massacres followed. On 18th October the honour was communicated to Bentham. He replied in a polite letter, pointing out that he was a royalist in London for the same reason which would make him a republican in France. He ended by a calm argument against the proscription of refugees.[64] The Convention, if it read the letter, and had any sense of humour, must have been amused. The war and the Reign of Terror followed. Bentham turned the occasion to account by writing a pamphlet (not then published) exhorting the French to 'emancipate their colonies.' Colonies were an aimless burthen, and to get rid of them would do more than conquest to relieve their finances. British fleets and the insurrection of St. Domingo were emancipating by very different methods.

Bentham was, of course, disgusted by the divergence of his clients from the lines chalked out by proper respect for law and order. On 31st October 1793 he writes to a friend, expressing his wish that Jacobinism could be extirpated; no price could be too heavy to pay for such a result: but he doubts whether war or peace would be the best means to the end, and protests against the policy of appropriating useless and expensive colonies instead of 'driving at the heart of the monster.'[65] Never was an adviser more at cross-purposes with the advised. It would be impossible to draw a more striking portrait of the abstract reasoner, whose calculations as to human motives omit all reference to passion, and who fancied that all prejudice can be dispelled by a few bits of logic.

Meanwhile a variety of suggestions more or less important and connected with passing events were seething in his fertile brain. He wrote one of his most stinging pamphlets, 'Truth versus Ashhurst' in December 1792, directed against a judge who, in the panic suggested by the September massacres, had eulogised the English laws. Bentham's aversion to Jacobin measures by no means softened his antipathy to English superstitions; and his attack was so sharp that Romilly advised and obtained its suppression for the time. Projects as to war-taxes suggested a couple of interesting pamphlets written in 1793, and published in 1795. In connection with this, schemes suggested themselves to him for improved systems of patents, for limited liability companies and other plans.[66] His great work still occupied him at intervals. In 1793 he offers to Dundas to employ himself in drafting Statutes, and remarks incidentally that he could legislate for Hindostan, should legislation be wanted there, as easily as for his own parish.[67] In 1794, Dumont is begging him to 'conquer his repugnance' to bestowing a few hints upon his interpreter.[68] In 1796, Bentham writes long letters suggesting that he should be sent to France with Wilberforce, in order to re-establish friendly relations.[69] In 1798 he is corresponding at great length with Patrick Colquhoun upon plans for improving the Metropolitan police.[70] In 1801 he says[71] that for two years and a half 'he has thought of scarce anything else' than a plan for interest-bearing notes, which he carefully elaborated and discussed with Nicholas Vansittart and Dr Beeke. In September 1800, however, he had found time to occupy himself with a proposed frigidarium or ice-house for the preservation of fish, fruits, and vegetables; and invited Dr Roget, a nephew of Romilly, to come to his house and carry out the necessary experiments.[72] In January 1802 he writes to Dumont[73] proposing to send him a trifling specimen of the Panopticon, a set of hollow fire-irons invented by his brother, which may attract the attention of Buonaparte and Talleyrand. He proceeds to expound the merits of Samuel's invention for making wheels by machinery. Dumont replies, that fire-irons are 'superfluities' -- (fire-arms might have been more to Buonaparte's taste) and that the Panopticon itself was coldly received.

This Panopticon was to be Bentham's masterpiece. It occupied his chief attention from his return to England until the peace of Amiens. His brother had returned from Russia in 1791. Their father died 28th March 1792, dividing his property equally between his sons. Jeremy's share consisted of the estate at Queen's Square Place, Westminster, and of landed property producing £ 500 or £600 a year. The father, spite of the distance between them, had treated his son with substantial kindness, and had learned to take a pride in achievements very unlike those which he had at first desired.[74] Bentham's position, however, was improved by the father's death. The Westminster estate included the house in which he lived for the rest of his life. There was a garden in which he took great delight, though London smoke gradually destroyed the plants: and in the garden was the small house where Milton had once lived.[75] Here, with the co-operation of his brother and his increased income, he had all the means necessary for launching his grand scheme.

The Panopticon, as defined by its inventor to Brissot, was a 'mill for grinding rogues honest, and idle men industrious.'[76] It was suggested by a plan designed by his brother in Russia for a large house to be occupied by workmen, and to be so arranged that they could be under constant inspection. Bentham was working on the old lines of philanthropic reform. He had long been interested in the schemes of prison reform, to which Howard's labours had given the impetus. Blackstone, with the help of William Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland, had prepared the 'Hard Labour Bill,' which Bentham had carefully criticised in 1778. The measure was passed in 1779, and provided for the management of convicts, who were becoming troublesome, as transportation to America had ceased to be possible. Howard, whose relation to Bentham I have already noticed, was appointed as one of the commissioners to carry out the provisions of the Act. The commissioners disagreed; Howard resigned; and though at last an architect (William Blackburn) was appointed who possessed Howard's confidence, and who constructed various prisons in the country, the scheme was allowed to drop. Bentham now hoped to solve the problem with his Panopticon. He printed an account of it in 1791. He wrote to his old antagonist, George III, describing it, together with another invention of Samuel's for enabling armies to cross rivers, which might be more to his Majesty's taste.[77] In March 1792 he made a proposal to the government offering to undertake the charge of a thousand convicts upon the Panopticon system.[78] After delays suspicious in the eyes of Bentham, but hardly surprising at such a period, an act of parliament was obtained in 1794 to adopt his schemes. Bentham had already been making preparations. He says[79] (14th September 1794) that he has already spent £6000, and is spending at the rate of £2000 a year, while his income was under £600 a year. He obtained, however, £2000 from the government. He had made models and architectural plans, in which he was helped by Reveley, already known to him at Constantinople. This sum, it appears, was required in order to keep together the men whom he employed. The nature of their employment is remarkable.[80] Samuel, a man of singular mechanical skill, which was of great use to the navy during the war, had devised machinery for work in wood and metal. Bentham had joined his brother, and they were looking out for a steam-engine. It had now occurred to them to employ convicts instead of steam, and thus to combine philanthropy with business. Difficulties of the usual kind arose as to the procurement of a suitable site. The site secured under the provisions of the 'Hard Labour Bill' was for some reason rejected; and Bentham was almost in despair. It was not until 1799 that he at last acquired for £12,000 an estate at Millbank, which seemed to be suitable. Meanwhile Bentham had found another application for his principle. The growth of pauperism was alarming statesmen. Whitbread proposed in February 1796 to fix a minimum rate of wages. The wisest thing that government could do, he said, was to 'offer a liberal premium for the encouragement of large families.' Pitt proceeded to prepare the abortive Poor-law Bill,[81] upon which Bentham (in February 1797) sent in some very shrewd criticisms. They were not published, but are said to have 'powerfully contributed to the abandonment of the measure.'[82] They show Bentham's power of incisive criticism, though they scarcely deal with the general principle. In the following autumn Bentham contributed to Arthur Young's Annals of Agriculture upon the same topic. It had struck him that an application of his Panopticon would give the required panacea. He worked out details with his usual zeal, and the scheme attracted notice among the philanthropists of the time. It was to be a 'succedaneum' to Pitt's proposal. Meanwhile the finance committee, appointed in 1797, heard evidence from Bentham's friend, Patrick Colquhoun, upon the Panopticon, and a report recommending it was proposed by R. Pole Carew, a friend of Samuel Bentham. Although this report was suppressed, the scheme apparently received an impetus. The Millbank estate was bought in consequence of these proceedings, and a sum of only £1000 was wanted to buy out the tenant of one piece of land. Bentham was constantly in attendance at a public office, expecting a final warrant for the money. It never came, and, as Bentham believed, the delay was due to the malice of George III. Had any other king been on the throne, Panopticon in both 'the prisoner branch and the pauper branch' would have been set at work.[83] Such are the consequences of newspaper controversies with monarchs! After this, in any case, the poor Panopticon, as the old lawyers said, 'languishing did live,' and at last 'languishing did die.' Poor Bentham seems to have struggled vainly for a time. He appealed to Pitt's friend, Wilberforce; he appealed to his step-brother Abbot; he wrote to members of parliament, but all was in vain.

Romilly induced him in 1802 to suppress a statement of his grievances which could only have rendered ministers implacable.[84] But he found out what would hardly have been a discovery to most people, that officials can be dilatory and evasive; and certain discoveries about the treatment of convicts in New South Wales convinced him that they could even defy the laws and the Constitution when they were beyond inspection. He published (1803) a Plea for the Constitution, showing the enormities committed in the colony, 'in breach of Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Bill of Rights.' Romilly in vain told him that the attorney-general could not recommend the author of such an effusion to be keeper of a Panopticon.[85] The actual end did not come till 1811. A committee then reported against the scheme. They noticed one essential and very characteristic weakness. The whole system turned upon the profit to be made from the criminals' labour by Bentham and his brother. The committee observed that, however unimpeachable might be the characters of the founders, the scheme might lead to abuses in the hands of their successors. The adoption of this principle of 'farming' had in fact led to gross abuses both in gaols and in workhouses; but it was, as I have said, in harmony with the whole 'individualist' theory. The committee recommended a different plan; and the result was the foundation of Millbank penitentiary, opened in 1816.[86] Bentham ultimately received £23,000 by way of compensation in 1813.[87] The objections of the committee would now be a commonplace, but Bentham saw in them another proof of the desire to increase government patronage. He was well out of the plan. There were probably few men in England less capable of managing a thousand convicts, in spite of his theories about 'springs of action.' If anything else had been required to ensure failure, it would have been association with a sanguine inventor of brilliant abilities.

Bentham's agitation had not been altogether fruitless. His plan had been partly adopted at Edinburgh by one of the Adams,[88] and his work formed an important stage in the development of the penal system.

Bentham, though he could not see that his failure was a blessing in disguise, had learned one lesson worth learning. He was ill-treated, according to impartial observers. 'Never,' says Wilberforce,[89] 'was any one worse used. I have seen the tears run down the cheeks of that strong-minded man through vexation at the pressing importunity of his creditors, and the indolence of official underlings when day after day he was begging at the Treasury for what was indeed a mere matter of right.' Wilberforce adds that Bentham was 'quite soured,' and attributes his later opinions to this cause. When the Quarterly Review long afterwards taunted him as a disappointed man, Bentham declared himself to be in 'a state of perpetual and unruffled gaiety,' and the 'mainspring' of the gaiety of his own circle.[90] No one, indeed, could be less 'soured' so far as his habitual temper was concerned. But Wilberforce's remark contained a serious truth. Bentham had made a discovery. He had vowed war in his youth against the 'demon of chicane.' He had now learned that the name of the demon was 'Legion.' To cast him out, it would be necessary to cast out the demon of officialism; and we shall see what this bit of knowledge presently implied.