belief that he was answering Mr Bentham, and was undeceived in
time only to add the postscript. The author of the article in
the Westminster Review had not perceived that the question raised
was not as to the truth or falsehood of the result at which Mr
Mill had arrived, but as to the soundness or unsoundness of the
method which he pursued; a misunderstanding at which Macaulay,
while he supposed the article to be the work of Mr Bentham,
expressed much surprise. The controversy soon became principally
a dispute as to the theory which was commonly known by the name
of The Greatest Happiness Principle. Another article in the
Westminster Review followed; and a surrejoinder by Macaulay in
the Edinburgh Review of October, 1829. Macaulay was irritated at
what he conceived to be either extreme dullness or gross
unfairness on the part of his unknown antagonist, and struck as
hard as he could; and he struck very hard indeed.

The ethical question thus raised was afterwards discussed by Sir
James Mackintosh, in the Dissertation contributed by him to the
seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, page 284-313
(Whewell's Edition). Sir James Mackintosh notices the part taken
in the controversy by Macaulay, in the following words: "A
writer of consummate ability, who has failed in little but the
respect due to the abilities and character of his opponents, has
given too much countenance to the abuse and confusion of language
exemplified in the well-known verse of Pope,

'Modes of self-love the Passions we may call.'

'We know,' says he, 'no universal proposition respecting human
nature which is true but one--that men always act from self-