[see -ISM.] The philosophical system of Jeremy Bentham, an eminent English jurist and writer on law and ethics, 1748–1832, who taught that the aim or end of life is happiness, identified by him with pleasure, and that the highest morality is the pursuit of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. So Benthamic a., of or according to Bentham (for this Carlyle has the contemptuous Benthamee). Benthamite sb., an adherent of the Benthamic philosophy; a. = prec. Benthamry, a contemptuous appellation for ‘Benthamism.’
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, v. 27. Benthamism is an eyeless Heroism.
1865. M. Arnold, Ess. Crit. (1875), Pref. 11. The British nation … has finally anchored itself … on Benthamism.
a. 1866. J. Grote, Exam. Util. Philos., xv. 227. Benthamic utilitarianism. Ibid., xvi. 247. Benthamic despotism.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, ii. 119. Benthamee utility, virtue by Profit and Loss.
a. 1852. Moore, Ghost of Miltiades, 54. A parting kick to the Benthamite.
1882. Athenæum, 15 April, 468/1. The too confident optimism of the Benthamites. Ibid., 28 Jan., 117/3. Summarizing and co-ordinating the work of the Benthamite circles.
1855. [Miss Cobbe], Ess. Intuitive Morals, 149, note. Public Eudaimonism, however, as I have described it, is not Benthamry.
