28 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY I 



members, that is, of the majority of the members, of any 

 state, is the great standard by which everything rekting to 

 that state must finally be determined."* 



The little sentence here interpolated, " that is, 

 of the majority of the members of any state," ap- 

 pears to be that passage which suggested to 

 Bentham, according to his own acknowledgment, 

 the famous " greatest happiness " formula, which 

 by substituting " happiness " for " good," has con- 

 verted a noble into an ignoble principle. But I do 

 not call to mind that there is any utterance in 

 Locke quite so outspoken as the following passage 

 in the " Essay on the First Principles of Govern- 

 ment." After laying down as " a fundamental 

 maxim in nil Governments," the proposition that 

 "kings, senators, and nobles" are "the servants 

 of the public," Priestley goes on to say: — 



" But in the largest states, if the abuses of the govern- 

 ment should at any time be great and manifest ; if the ser- 

 vants of the people, forgetting their masters and their mas- 

 ters' interest, should pursue a separate one of their own ; if, 

 instead of considering that they are made for the people, 

 they should consider the people as made for them ; if the 

 oppressions and violation of right should be great, flagrant, 

 and universally resented ; if the tyrannical governors should 

 have no friends but a few sycophants, who had long preyed 

 upon the vitals of their fellow-citizens, and who might bo 

 expected to desert a government whenever their interests 

 should be detached from it : if, in consequence of these cir- 

 cumstances, it should become manifest that the risk which 

 would be run in attempting a revolution would be trifling, 



* Esftny on the First Prijiciples of Government. Second 

 edition, 1771. p. 13. 



