Among the works read in the course of this year, which contributed materially to my development, I ought to mention a book (written on the foundation of some of Bentham’s manuscripts and published under the pseudonym of Philip Beauchamp) entitled “Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind.” This was an examination not of the truth, but of the usefulness of religious belief, in the most general sense, apart from the peculiarities of any special Revelation; which, of all the parts of the discussion concerning religion, is the most important in this age, in which real belief in any religious doctrine is feeble and precarious, but the opinion of its necessity for moral and social purposes almost universal; and when those who reject revelation, very generally take refuge in an optimistic Deism, a worship of the order of Nature, and the supposed course of Providence, at least as full of contradictions, and perverting to the moral sentiments, as any of the forms of Christianity, if only it is as completely realized. Yet, very little, with any claim to a philosophical character, has been written by sceptics against the usefulness of this form of belief. The volume bearing the name of Philip Beauchamp had this for its special object. Having been shown to my father in manuscript, it was put into my hands by him, and I made a marginal analysis of it as I had done of the Elements of Political Economy. Next to the Traité de Législation, it was one of the books which by the searching character of its analysis produced the greatest effect upon me. On reading it lately after an interval of many years, I find it to have some of the defects as well as the merits of the Benthamic modes of thought, and to contain, as I now think, many weak arguments, but with a great overbalance of sound ones, and much good material for a more completely philosophic and conclusive treatment of the subject.

Note from KBJ: Do you suppose Mill knew that this pseudonymous work was by Bentham? I can’t believe he didn’t know, in which case he was being coy in this paragraph. By the way, the question of the usefulness of religious belief is separate from the question of its truth. One can ask of any belief, including the belief that 2 + 2 = 4, whether it is useful. The answer has no bearing on whether the belief is true. There can be true and useful beliefs, true but useless beliefs, false but useful beliefs, and false and useless beliefs. To a philosopher, the only question is whether religious belief is true. Psychologists are interested in the causal antecedents and consequents of religious belief. Moralists such as Bentham are interested in the usefulness of religious belief. Some people, such as Brian Leiter, conflate the three inquiries, which shows that they lack philosophical aptitude.