chapter 4 Bentham, Mill, Grote, and An Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind

Catherine Fuller †

This paper investigates the production of An Analysis of the influence of natu- ral religion on the temporal happiness of mankind, first published in 1822 by , from Bentham’s manuscripts on the utility of religion. The paper undertakes a preliminary comparison between the manuscripts and the book. The basis of this comparison also includes Grote’s essay on Magic, the influ- ence of , and Bentham’s reaction to the book. It will be argued that Bentham and Grote had different agenda, and produced different texts, and that to regard Bentham as the author of An Analysis of the influence of natural religion is misleading.1 Denied the possibility of a university education by his father’s insistence that he worked in the family bank, George Grote sought all possibilities of edu- cation and debate through friendship, and in 1819 met James Mill.2 Grote soon came under Mill’s influence, and according to Harriet, Grote’s wife, “there was little difference in point of opinion between them.”3 Grote’s early essay on Magic, completed by Christmas 1820,4 was a thinly- disguised attack on religion. Mill recommended Grote and the essay to the editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and recommended Grote to Bentham as an editor of his writings on the utility of religion.5 After two meetings at dinner with Grote in August and November 1821, Bentham sent four parcels

1 A version of this paper was given at the ISUS Conference held in San Francisco in September 2008. 2 George Grote (1794–1871) later became a member of the Utilitarian Society run by , and the Political Economy Club: he had joined the community which was to become the Philosophic Radicals. 3 Harriet Grote, The Personal Life of George Grote (London: John Murray, 1873), 22. For an exam- ple of the closeness of the thought of Mill and Grote in their private writings, see Postscript below. 4 “Essay on Magick,” BL Add. MS. 29,531, ff. 1–65, 67–88v, dated, by Harriet Grote, Christmas 1820. 5 In January 1821.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004280496_��6 118 Fuller of manuscripts to Grote at his home above the family bank in Threadneedle Street.6 The last parcel was sent on 18 December 1821. Grote returned all the manuscripts to Bentham on 5 November 1822, and on the same day Richard Carlile the publisher sent Bentham a copy of the printed work, which it had taken Grote under a year to complete.7

1

What did Bentham send to Grote? Over 1,500 manuscripts. These represented all his work on the utility of religion―from the earliest paragraph, dated 10 July 1807, headed: “Ch. 1. Utility of Religion a subject little as yet examined,”8 which was the introduction to a modest two-part work, to his most recent thoughts of November 18219 for a much larger eight-part work.10 In these

6 Colls’s Journal, BL Add. MS. 33,563, ff. 92–4. We can tell from the record kept by Colls, Bentham’s amanuensis, how many and when the manuscripts were sent to Grote. The manuscripts now in the British Library are still bound in the same parcels, among which is Grote’s plan, probably for second part of his work, written on the back of a cover sheet for a letter dated 3 December 1821; BL Add. MS. 29,807, f. 195. 7 Colls’s Journal, BL Add. MS. 33,563, f. 112. 8 Bentham continued: “While meditating on the subject of religion, and in particular on the influence which the notions presented by that term have or have been supposed to have on the welfare of mankind during the present life, it has frequently occurred to me, that after so much as has been said on both sides on the question respecting truth . . . yet the question concerning their utility with reference to the present life, together with ref- erence to a life to come, has never yet been placed in a full and satisfactory point of view.” See BL Add. MS. 29,809, f. 313, written at Barrow Hill House, Oxted, . While at Ford Abbey, Bentham did address the question of truth, see below. 9 Bentham wrote on the utility of religion for the last time on 30 September 1830, “Jug.Util.,” UC [Bentham Papers] cxxxviii. 162–5, 166. 10 There are a number of plans for the eight-part work, with slight variations in order and text. According to a plan dated 3 and 10 March 1821 (BL Add. MS. 29,807, ff. 157–8), the final work was designed to be as follows: “I. On the usefulness of Natural Religion, Verity not considered. II. On the usefulness of Natural Religion, apparent Verity considered. III. On the usefulness of Revealed Religion at large, apparent verity considered. IV. On the usefulness of the Religion of Jesus, its apparent verity considered in the general point of view. V. On the usefulness of Religion of Jesus, Verity apart or not considered. VI. Religion of Jesus considered under the form given to it by Political Establishments. VII. Jesus Displayed: or the True History of Jesus (as deduced from a critical examina- tion of the documents).