ABSTRACT
From the beginning until the end of his life Bentham was above all other things a reformer. Even his more erudite speculations, such as those on language and mathematics, were typically intended to contribute to change in the moral and political life of society. But unlike many reformers, Bentham sought to be comprehensive in his suggestions and to ground his proposals firmly on a science of morals and legislation. That science, in its turn, was to be based on observation, experience and, where possible, experimentation. If the fundamental goal for the science, the pursuit of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, was fixed, nevertheless the science itself was intended to be flexible, ever ready to take into account new information and new suggestions as to how the end might best be achieved. Thus when Bentham became a democrat it was because he believed the evidence indicated that democracy was necessary and possible: evidence from the United States indicated that a democracy could be stable and therefore democracy was a viable form of government; evidence from England indicated that change there was necessary because corruption and the abuse of liberty were inherent in the institutional arrangements of government. But, having become a democrat, Bentham's concern for flexibility and for empirical evidence seems to have abandoned him. Perhaps this was the result of the long and bitter frustrations which he had experienced over the years in his attempts to win support for reform. But perhaps it also reveals something about the nature of his enterprise from the beginning.
