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PREFACE. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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PREFACE.

Of the two essays laid before the public, that which presents a new resource was submitted to the proper authority in the month of September 1794, but was not fortunate enough to be deemed worth further notice. The arguments which it contains will speak for themselves; none were controverted, nor any hinted at on the other side; only as a matter of fact, it was observed, that it had not been customary of late for the crown to avail itself of the branch of prerogative here proposed to be cultivated for the public use.

Nobody can suppose that the minister would not gladly have availed himself of this, as of any other, source of supply, had it promised, in his conception, to conciliate the voice of the public in its favour. Nobody can suppose, that if the apprehensions that occurred in prospect should ever be dispelled by the event, the sense of the public would find him backward in conforming to it. It is natural that the difficulties attending a measure of considerable novelty and magnitude, should strike with a force proportioned to the responsibility of the situation to which the measure is presented. It is natural that they should strike with less than their proper force, on the imagination of him in whose conception it received its birth.

The idea had been honoured with the approbation of several gentlemen of eminence at the bar, some of them in Parliament, as many as had had the paper in their hands. If they were right in their wishes in its favour, it by no means follows, but those to whom it was submitted in their official capacities, did otherwise than right in declining to make use of it. Of all the qualifications required at the board to which it was presented, one of the most indispensable is the science of the times; a science, which though its title to the name of science were to be disputed, would not the less be acknowledged to be in the situation in question, “fairly worth the seven.” For that master-science none can have higher pretensions than the illustrious chief of that department, none less than the author of these pages.

Neither his expectations, nor so much as his wishes, in relation to this proposal, had extended so far as to its immediate adoption. It now lies with the public, who in due time will grant or refuse it their passport to the Treasury, and to parliament, according to its deserts.

The “protest against law-taxes” had better fortune: it received from the candour of the minister, on whose plans it hazarded a comment, all the attention that candour could bestow; and if I do not misrecollect, the taxes complained against did not afterwards appear.

The publication of it in this country was kept back, till the proposal for a substitute to the tax complained of should be brought into shape. Upon the principle of the parliamentary notion, which forbids the producing an objection to a tax without a proposal for a better on the back of it. The two essays seemed no unsuitable accompaniments to each other. Mutual light promised to be reflected by the contrast between the best of all possible resources and the worst.