[In the following review, Neff notes the historical and philosophical significance of Halévy's study of English Utilitarianism, The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism.]

The appearance of M. Halévy's Formation du Radicalisme Philosophique in English twenty-five years after its publication may be taken as discouraging evidence of the slowness of international communication of ideas. Or it may seem rather the more discouraging that a translation should be necessary to introduce so important a work on an English subject to the intelligent public of England and the United States, and that a glance at books subsequently touching upon the subject or conversation with people interested in the Utilitarians should readily show how great a barrier the supposedly familiar French language may be. This study might have remained even longer unfamiliar had it not been for the enthusiastic though tardy recognition of M. Halévy's History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century upon the translation of its first volume over ten years after its publication.

In the case of The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism, however, Anglo-Saxon provinciality had a certain excuse in the possession of Sir Leslie Stephen's English Utilitarians, which appeared in 1900, the year previous to M. Halévy's first volume. Stephen was then in his late sixties, and enjoyed the prestige of such notable books as English Thought in the Eighteenth Century; M. Halévy was barely past thirty. Stephen had the advantage of association with men who had known the younger Utilitarians, and thus was able to reproduce the personal flavor of the Philosophical Radicals. His book builds up the social background in much detail, and is familiar and colorful in style. Hence it is a more elementary and popular treatment of the subject than M. Halévy's, which is a tightly knit study of “the historical and logical origins of Philosophical Radicalism,” designed as “a chapter in the philosophy of history as well as a chapter in the history of philosophy.” M. Halévy's detachment from British society gave him a superior objectivity. Keenly interested in his subject because of the analogies which it suggested to the movement of ideas culminating in the French Revolution, he could still regard with amused curiosity attempts “to disguise Anglo-Saxon naturalism as rationalism.” He points out the important French contributions to the tangled and intricate origins of Benthamite thought in a cosmopolitan atmosphere, showing, for example, how in Ricardo the theology of Malebranche entered into an ill assorted union with Hume's naturalism which was to mean the ultimate instability of classical economics. His delight in “the paradoxical nature manifested by the march of ideas in history,” his ability to hold to the main currents of thought while tracing the course of its eddies, save him from the discursiveness and somewhat finicky criticism which make The English Utilitarians less profound and satisfactory than English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. Furthermore, his consultation of the Bentham manuscripts at University College, London, and the Place manuscripts in the British Museum gave him an added ballast of facts. In the patient unravelling of the filiation of ideas, whose logical course was so frequently altered by the pressure of social needs and political events, we see emerging M. Halévy the historian. His concise logical criticism, free from the French vice of excessive simplication, delights the student of philosophy.

M. Halévy's book is of great importance, not only to the historian of thought, but to the thinker grappling with present-day problems; for Benthamite doctrine is to a great extent embodied in twentieth-century political, economic, and legal institutions, and colors our ethics and psychology. Philosophic Radicalism was a bold, thoroughgoing, and fruitful attempt to apply the methods of science to man and society; but, as M. Halévy shows, it was a premature attempt. Through its premature crystallization in institutions which had to be improvised to supersede a decaying feudal order we to-day suffer from maladjustment. For it could utilize only the techniques of Newton, and, to a slight extent, of chemistry, the other sciences having not yet developed sufficiently reliable methodology. The Philosophical Radicals were “assimilators and organizers” rather than original minds, and consequently applied their scientific categories the more ruthlessly to the concrete realities of society, inventing convenient abstractive fictions when facts were stubborn. They were handicapped by insufficient statistics, yet minimized their importance when offered by Malthus and others. Enamored of simplicity, they deduced “laws” from hasty generalizations. It is significant that their democratic politics were a miscalculation made by universalizing the results of the Westminster elections. Their ethics, until J. S. Mill let in the light, was largely a rationalization of the economic practice of the English middle class, and this ethics vitiated much of their legal theory. Their “classical” economics mistook local and transient tendencies for universal laws, and that mistake has been perpetuated in our textbooks. Having lived much too long upon Benthamite intellectual capital, we are faced with the necessity of bringing our political, economic, and legal institutions abreast with the advance in the social sciences. Lest in our haste we repeat Benthamite errors and enclose ourselves in another tight little world, we should follow M. Halévy's admirably clear analysis of the development of Philosophic Radicalism. Behaviorist psychologists should scan the historical vicissitudes of their point of view, which counsel wariness and caution.

The translation, though good linguistically, has evidently been made by one insufficiently acquainted with the subject-matter; hence the continuance from the original text of several obvious misprints, such as the statement that James Mill's History of India was begun in 1806 and published in 1807 (actually, in 1817). It is also regrettable that the printing of the three French volumes as one sizable English volume should have caused the omission of two of the three valuable appendices, and the shearing down of the very full notes, often extending to more than a page of fine print and full of valuable extracts from Benthamite writings and correspondence, almost entirely to references to volumes and pages of sources. This is especially annoying when it involves the sacrifice of excerpts from inaccessible manuscripts. The abridgment at times leaves a false impression. We are told, for example, that in 1783 Bentham “published a translation of a German work on applied chemistry.” Important inferences could be made if it were proved that Bentham knew German at that time; yet it is only by reference to the notes to the French text that one learns that he used the intermediary of a French translation. Likewise the excision of almost all the rich biographical material from the notes will oblige the reader to turn to Stephen for an adequate knowledge of what kind of men the Utilitarians were. There remains little indication of the vivid personality of the youthful Bentham, which has been emphasized by the new material displayed in Mr. C. W. Everett's Introduction to his recently resurrected early work, the Comment on the Commentaries. Mr. Everett has provided the translation with its one improvement on the original, a full bibliography up to date.