‘Its system of tactics will more nearly approach perfection’

Bentham opened his Essay by proclaiming the negative facet of his program. When the assembly engaged in less-than-best practices, he argued, members would inflict inconveniences on political society.

1 Inaction.

2 Useless decision.

3 Indecision.

4 Delays.

5 Surprise or precipitation.

6 Fluctuations in measures.

7 Quarrels.

8 Falsehoods.

9 Decisions, vicious on account of form.

10 Decisions, vicious in respect of their foundation.²⁶

Bentham supported his claims with examples, many of which will strike the modern reader as dubious. Under ‘Delays’ Bentham included ‘all vague and useless procedures [such as] amusements suited to the amphitheatre or the playhouse’.²⁷

Such, then, are the inconveniences to which a political assembly may be exposed from the commencement to the termination of its labours; and its system of tactics will the more nearly approach perfection, the more completely it tends to prevent them, or to minimize or reduce them to their lowest term.²⁸

The moment when members considered their choice of pathways also sup­plied the opportune time to bring suitable ‘discipline’ to bear. This was the case in ‘all sorts of political assemblies’.²⁹ Bentham argued that ‘a system of well-digested rules’ afforded members their opportunity to take stock of

‘The tactics of political assemblies’ 127 their situation, as a matter of course, when procedural choices were to be made.³⁰ It is then

that the rule would be particularly useful: by interrupting the debate, it favours reflection, it diminishes the influence of eloquence, it gives to the result a character of dignity and moderation.³¹

Bentham, however, soiled the ‘dignity’ of this passage by praising ‘British practice’.

were in the situation of a manufacturer, who besides the work that was the object of his manufacture, should find himself under the necessity of making the very tools he was to work with. The presenting these new manufacturers with a new set of tools, with a description of their uses - tools whose temper had been so well tried - was the object of the present design.³³

Bentham identified a bench-marking function at work: how would mem­bers know that they were on course to evolve their ‘system of tactics’ to the point where it ‘will the more nearly approach perfection’?³⁴ This would be the moment, he declared, when the ‘manufacturer’ would find ‘himself under the necessity of making the very tools he was to work with’. Bentham underscored his argument by writing himself into the narrative. When the assembly reached this threshold enquiry - how do we go about ‘making new tools?’ - Bentham promised to enter the assembly with a ‘new set of tools’. Bentham to the rescue could then present these tools to ‘these new manufacturers’.

When Bentham articulated his approach to code-writing, he wrote at a very high level of abstraction. A ‘good system of tactics will present a gen­eral advantage, which depends upon it as a whole’.³⁵ Parliamentary science committed the investigator to seek out the points at which legislators were most likely to make procedural blunders. This was, in Bentham’s mind, the point at which they were in need of ‘new tools’ and required the assistance of a virtuosic mind. The beneficial results that flow from a ‘good system’ would then be tangible. ‘The more nearly [such a system] approaches per­fection, the more completely will it facilitate to all the co-operators the exercise of their intelligence and the enjoyment of their liberty’.³⁶ In this passage Bentham drilled down from the aspirational to the technical, that is, from ‘general advantage’ to the ‘tools’ he offered members of a legislative 128 ‘The tactics of political assemblies’ assembly. Bentham’s passages displayed chromatic cascades that brought his readers from one level of abstraction to another.