Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/511

 15. DILLON: INFLUENCE OF BENTHAM 497 " ments, now accommodated to daily use, are cheerful and " commodious, though their approaches may be winding and " difficult." ^ What could be more charming, what more de- sirable! All the interest and grandeur that attach to a structure at once imposing, venerable, and historic, combined with the convenience that results from its being already fitted to the amplest modern uses, — the only defect being, if, indeed, it is such, that the approaches may be (he does not feel quite sure that they are) somewhat winding and difficult. Bentham's claims upon our regard will not be duly valued unless we keep ever in mind the difficulties which he was called upon to face. He stood alone. For more than twenty- five years he stood absolutely alone. But like Milton (whose London house it was "^ntham's pride to own, although it was one of his peculiarities that he utterly disesteemed poetry), — like Milton in his blindness, through all neglect and discouragements, Bentham " bated not a jot of heart " or hope, but still bore up and steered right onward." I have not the time, if I had the power, adequately to present a picture of the obstacles Bentham met with. And yet I must not pass these entirely over, as they are the background of any portraiture of the man and his work, There was the traditional, constitutional, ingrained aversion of the English people to innovation, combined with their idolatrous regard for the existing order of things.^ It is worth while to illustrate this. Burke was undoubtedly the most enlightened statesman of his age, • — one of the pro- foundest political thinkers and philosophers of any age. In one of his greatest speeches^ he thus expressed in his felici- tous way the traditional and habitual regard of the English mind for the established Constitution and for ancient acts of Parliament : — " I do not dare to rub off a particle of the venerable " rust that rather adorns and preserves than destroys the " metal. It would be a profanation to touch with a tool »3 Black. Com., 268; 2 Dillon, "Municipal Corporations" (4th ed.) { 934. a, and note. • See ante Lecture XI. 'Conciliation with America, 1775.