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By Jeremy Bentham: The Rationale of Reward
Book III
Reward Applied to Art and Science
Chapter
I
Art and ScienceDivisions
A cloud of perplexity, raised by indistinct and erroneous conceptions, seems at all
times to have been hanging over the import of the terms art and science. The common supposition seems to have been, that in
the whole field of thought and action, a determinate number of existing compartments are assignable, marked out all round,
and distinguished from one another by so many sets of natural and determinate boundary lines: that of these compartments some
are filled, each by an art, without any mixture of science; others by a science, without any mixture of art; and others, again,
are so constituted, that, as it has never happened to them hitherto, so neither can it ever happen to them in future, to contain
in them any thing either of art or science.
This supposition will, it is believed, be found in every part erroneous:
as between art and science, in the whole field of thought and action, no one spot will be found belonging to either to the
exclusion of the other. In whatsoever spot a portion of either is found, a portion of the other may be also seen; whatsoever
spot is occupied by either, is occupied by bothis occupied by them in joint tenancy. Whatsoever spot is thus occupied, is
so much taken out of the waste; and there is not any determinate part of the whole waste which is not liable to be thus occupied.
Practice, in proportion as attention and exertion are regarded as necessary to due performance, is termed art. Knowledge,
in proportion as attention and exertion are regarded as necessary to attainment, is termed science.
In the very nature
of the case, they will be found so combined as to be inseparable. Man cannot do anything well, but in proportion as he knows
how to do it: he cannot, in consequence of attention and exertion, know anything but in proportion as he has practised the
art of learning it. Correspondent therefore, to every art, there is at least one branch of science; correspondent to every
branch of science, there is at least one branch of art. There is no determinate line of distinction between art on the one
hand, and science on the other; no determinate line of distinction between art and science on the one hand, and unartificial
practice and unscientific knowledge on the other. In proportion as that which is seen to be done, is more conspicuous than
that which is seen or supposed to be known,that which has place is apt to be considered as the work of art: in proportion
as that which is seen or supposed to be known, is more conspicuous than anything else that is seen to be done,that which has
place is apt to be set down to the account of science. Day by day, acting in conjunction, art and science are gaining upon
the above-mentioned wastethe field of unartificial practice and unscientific knowledge. Taken collectively, and considered
in their connexion with the happiness of society, the arts and sciences may be arranged in two divisions viz.1. Those of amusement
and curiosity; 2. Those of utility, immediate and remote. These two branches of human knowledge re quire different methods
of treatment on the part of governments.
By arts and sciences of amusement, I mean those which are ordinarily called
the fine arts; such as music, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, ornamental gardening, &c. &c. Their complete
enumeration must be excused: it would lead us too far from our present subject, were we to plunge into the metaphysical discussions
necessary for its accomplishment. Amusements of all sorts would be comprised under this head.
Custom has in a manner
compelled us to make the distinction between the arts and sciences of amusement, and those of curiosity. It is not, however,
proper to regard the former as destitute of utility: on the contrary, there is nothing, the utility of which is more incontestable.
To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure? All that can be alleged
in diminution of their utility is, that it is limited to the excitement of pleasure: they cannot disperse the clouds of grief
or of misfortune. They are useless to those who are not pleased with them: they are useful only to those who take pleasure
in them, and only in proportion as they are pleased.
By arts and sciences of curiosity, I mean those which in truth
are pleasing, but not in the same degree as the fine arts, and to which at the first glance we might be tempted to refuse
this quality. It is not that these arts and sciences of curiosity do not yield as much pleasure to those who cultivate them
as the fine arts; but the number of those who study them is more limited. Of this nature are the sciences of heraldry, of
medals, of pure chronologythe knowledge of ancient and barbarous languages, which present only collections of strange words,and
the study of antiquities, inasmuch as they furnish no instruction applicable to morality, or any other branch of useful or
agreeable knowledge.
The utility of all these arts and sciences,I speak both of those of amusement and curiosity,the
value which they possess, is exactly in proportion to the pleasure they yield. Every other species of preeminence which may
be attempted to be established among them is altogether fanciful. Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value
with the arts and sciences of music and poetry. If the game of push-pin furnish more pleasure, it is more valuable than either.
Everybody can play at push-pin: poetry and music are relished only by a few. The game of push-pin is always innocent: it were
well could the same be always asserted of poetry. Indeed, between poetry and truth there is natural opposition: false morals
and fictitious nature. The poet always stands in need of something false. When he pretends to lay has foundations in truth,
the ornaments of his superstructure are fictions; his business consist in stimulating our passions, and exciting our prejudices.
Truth, exactitude of every kind is fatal to poetry. The poet must see everything through coloured media, and strive to make
every one else do the same. It is true, there have been noble spirits, to whom poetry and philosophy have been equally indebted;
but these exceptions do not counteract the mischiefs which have resulted from this magic art. If poetry and music deserve
to he preferred before a game of push-pin, it must be because they are calculated to gratify those individuals who are most
difficult to be pleased.
All the arts and sciences, without exception, inasmuch as they constitute innocent employments,
at least of time, possess a species of moral utility, neither the less real or important because it is frequently unobserved.
They compete with, and occupy the place of those mischievous and dangerous passions and employments, to which want of occupation
and ennui give birth. They are excellent substitutes for drunkenness, slander, and the love of gaming.
The effects
of idleness upon the ancient Germans may be seen in Tacitus. His observations are applicable to all uncivilized nations: for
want of other occupations the wage war upon each otherit was a more animated amusement than that of the chase. The chieftain
who proposed a martial expedition, at the first sound of his trumpet ranged under his banners a crowd of idlers, to whom peace
was a condition of restraint, of languor, and of ennui. Glory could be reaped only in one fieldopulence knew but one luxury.
This field was that of battlethis luxury that of conquering or recounting past conquests. Their women themselves, ignorant
of those agreeable arts which multiply the means of pleasing, and prolong the empire of beauty, became the rivals of the men
in courage, and, mingling with them in the barbarous tumult of a military life, became unfeeling as they.
It is to
the cultivation of the arts and sciences, that we must in great measure ascribe the existence of that party which is now opposed
to war: it has received its birth amid the occupation and pleasures furnished by the fine arts. These arts, so to speak, have
enrolled under their peaceful banners that army of idlers which would have otherwise possessed no amusement but in the hazardous
and bloody game of war.
Such is the species of utility which belongs indiscriminately to all the arts and sciences.
Were it the only reason, it would be a sufficient reason for desiring to see them flourish and receive the most extended diffusion.
If these principles are correct, we shall know how to estimate those critics, more ingenious than useful, who, under
pretence of purifying the public taste, endeavour successively to deprive mankind of a larger or smaller part of the sources
of their amusement. These modest judges of elegance and taste consider themselves as benefactors to the human race, while
they are really only the interrupters of their pleasurea sort of importunate hosts, who place themselves at the table to diminish,
by their pretended delicacy, the appetite of their guests. It is only from custom and prejudice that, in matters of taste,
we speak of false and true. There is no taste which deserves the epithet good, unless it be the taste for such employments
which, to the pleasure actually produced by them, conjoin some contingent or future utility: there is no taste which deserves
to be characterized as bad, unless it be a taste for some occupation which has a mischievous tendency.
The celebrated
and ingenious Addison has distinguished himself by his skill in the art of ridiculing enjoyments, by attaching to them the
fantastic idea of bad taste. In the Spectator he wages relentless war against the whole generation of false wits. Acrostics,
conundrums, pantomimes, puppet-shows, bouts-rims, stanzas in the shape of eggs, of wings, burlesque poetry of every descriptionin
a word, a thousand other light and equally innocent amusements, fall crushed under the strokes of his club. And, proud of
having established his empire above the ruins of these literary trifles he regards himself as the legislator of Parnassus!
What, however, was the effect of his new laws? They deprived those who submitted to them, of many sources of pleasurethey
exposed those who were more inflexible, to the contempt of their companions.
Even Hume himself, in spite of his proud
and independent philosophy, has yielded to this literary prejudice. ``By a sing1e piece,'' says he, ``the Duke of Buckingham
rendered a great service to his age, and was the reformer of its taste!'' In what consisted this important service? He had
written a comedy, The Rehearsal, the object of which was to render those theatrical pieces which had been most popular, the
objects of general distaste. His satire was completely successful; but what was its fruit? The lovers of that species of amusement
were deprived of so much pleasure; a multitude of authors covered with ridicule and contempt, deplored, at the same time,
the loss of their reputation and their bread.
As the amusement of a minister of state, it must be confessed that a
more suitable one might be found than a game at solitaire. Still among the number of its amateurs was once found Potemkin,
one of the most active and respected Russian ministers of state. I see a smile of contempt upon the lips of many of my readers,
who would not think it strange that any one should play at cards from eve till morn, provided it were in company. But how
incomparably superior is this solitary game to many social gamesso often antisocial in their consequences! The first, a pure
and simple amusement, stripped of everything injurious, free from passion, avarice, loss, and regret. It is gaming enjoyed
by some happy individuals, in that state in which legislators may desire, but cannot hope that it will ever be enjoyed by
all throughout the whole world. How much better was this minister occupied than if, with the Iliad in his hand, he had stirred
up within his heart the seeds of those ferocious passions which can only be gratified with tears and blood.
As men
grow old, they lose their relish for the simple amusements of childhood. Is this a reason for pride? It may be sowhen to be
hard to please, and to have our happiness dependent on what is costly and complicated, shall be found to be advantageous.
The child who is building houses of cards is happier than was Louis XIV. when building Versailles. Architect and mason at
once, master of his situation and his materials, he alters and overturns at will.
Diruit, edificat, mutat quadrata
rotundis:
and all this at the expense neither of groans nor money. The proverbial expression of the games of princes,
may furnish us with strong reasons for regretting that princes should ever cease to love the games of children.
A
reward was offered by one of the Roman emperors to whoever would invent a new pleasure, and because this emperor was called
Nero, or Caligula, it has been imputed to him as a crime: as if every sovereign, and even every private individual, who encourages
the cultivation of the arts and sciences were not an accomplice in this crime. The employment of those critics, to whom we
have before referred, tends to diminish the existing stock of our pleasures: the natural effect of increasing years, is to
render us insensible to those which remain: by those who blame the offer of the Roman emperor, these critics should be esteemed
the benefactors of mankind, and old age the perfection of human life.
In league with these critics are the tribe of
satiriststhose generous men, who without other reward than the pleasure of humbling and disfiguring everything which does
not please them, have constituted themselves reformers of mankind! The only satire I could read without disgust and aversion,
would be a satire on these libellers themselves. Their occupation consists in fomenting scandal, and in disseminating its
poisons throughout the world, that they may be furnished with pretexts for pouring contempt upon everything that employs or
interests other men. By blackening everything and exaggerating everything (for it is by exaggeration they exist) they deceive
the judgments of their readers:innocent amusements, ludicrous eccentricities, venial transgressions and crimes, are alike
confounded and covered with their venom. Their design is to efface all the lines of demarcation, all the essential distinctions
which philosophy and legislation have with so much labour traced. For one truth, we find a thousand odious hyperboles in their
works. They never cease to excite malevolence and antipathy: under their auspices or at least under the influence of the passions
which animate them, language itself becomes satirical. Neutral expression can scarcely be found to designate the motives which
determine human actions: to the words expressive of the motive, such as avarice, ambition, pride, idleness, and many others,
the idea of disapprobation is so closely, though unnecessarily, connected, that the simple mention of the motive implies a
censure, even when the actions which have resulted from it have been most innocent. The nomenclature of morals is so tinctured
with these prejudices, that it is not possible, without great difficulty and long circumlocutions, simply and purely, without
reprobation or approbation, to express the motives by which mankind are governed. Hence our languages, rich in terms of hatred
and reproach, are poor and rugged for the purposes of science and of reason. Such is the evil created aud augmented by satiric
writers.
Among rich and prosperous nations, it is not necessary that the public should be at the expense of cultivating
the arts and sciences of amusement and curiosity. Individuals will always bestow upon these that portion of reward which is
proportioned to the pleasure they bestow.
Whilst as to the arts and sciences of immediate and those of more remote
utility, it would not be necessary, nor perhaps possible, to preserve between these two classes an exact line of demarcation,
the distinctions of theory and practice are equally applicable to all. Considered as matter of theory every art or science,
even when its practical utility is most immediate and incontestable, appears to retire into the division of arts and sciences
of remote utility. It is thus that medicine and legislation, arts so truly practical, considered under a particular aspect,
appear equally remote in respect to their utility with the speculative sciences of logic and mathematics.
On the other
hand, there is a branch of science for which, at first, a place would scarcely have been found among the arts and sciences
of curiosity, but which, cultivated by industrious hands, has at length presented the characters of incontestable utility.
Electricity, which, when first discovered, seemed destined only to amuse certain philosopher by the singularity of its phenomena,
has at length been employed with most striking success in the service of medicine, and in the protection of our dwellings
against those calamities, for which ignorant and affrighted antiquity could find no sufficient cause but the special anger
of the gods.
That which government ought to do for the arts and sciences of immediate and remote utility, may be comprised
in three things1. To remove the discouragements under which they labour; 2. To favour their advancement; 3. To contribute
to their diffusion.
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[RR,
Book III, Chapter II]
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