Downloaded from 5I the rigid Ricardianism of the next generation would have been impossible. The economic man is merely an ideal of the utilitarians. He measures his satisfactions in ounces of bread, and his pains in units of time-labor; he is mobile because he attaches no importance to the peculiar pleasures of time, place or locality; home, country and friends are readily exchanged to get more ounces of bread or to reduce the amount of time-labor. This concept of a normal man wars not a vague

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... ideal in the mind of Bentham, but one that he developed with great fullness. His thought is well expressed in the following sentences: &dquo When the effect of a portion of wealth upon happiness is spoken of, it is always without reference to the sensibility of the particular individual, and of the exterior circumstances in which he may be placed. Difference in character is inscrutable; and there are no two individuals whose circumstances are alike. If these two considerations were not laid on one side, it would be impossible to form a single general proposition: but though each of these propositions may be found false or inexact in each particular case, it will neither militate against their speculative correctness, nor their practical utility. It is sufficient,-first if they approach more nearly to the truth than any others which can be substituted for them; and, secondly, if they may be employed by the legislator, as the foundation of his labors, with less inconvenience than any others. &dquo * This statement is followed by five axioms fixing the relation of quantities of wealth to the amount of happiness which its possessors can obtain from it. As Bentham puts them in italics, it shows that they are the result of a careful formulation.