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SECTION VIII.: CONCURRENCE OF ANY CONSTITUTED AUTHORITIES IMPOSSIBLE. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3 [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. 3.

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

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SECTION VIII.

CONCURRENCE OF ANY CONSTITUTED AUTHORITIES IMPOSSIBLE.

Be the plan of partition what it may, if the effect and benefit of it is to be more than momentary, the necessity of a concurrence, and that a persevering one, of the constituted authorities for the time being, has been already brought to view—(Section I.) Here, if the pile of impossibilities is not yet high enough, here then is another stage to add to it. The constituted authorities, by which the scheme will be carried into effect, will either be the existing set as they stand at present, or a new set. As to the existing set, the least objectionable plan being what it has been shown to be, a concurrence on their part would scarcely be expected. Sooner than concur in any such work of certain self-destruction, they would of course all of them fly the country, or die with arms in their hands, in their endeavours to resist it. But, how certainly soever, in the eyes of the now existing constituted authorities, supposing any advance made in such a scheme, their own destruction would be among the results of it, it could not be more so in their eyes than it would be in the eyes of any person whatsoever, into whose hands the immediately operative power of government could come to be transferred.

A design of this sort agreed upon, and nobody to put the question—by what hands the business would be to be done? A design of this sort thus blindly agreed upon—agreed upon by numbers competent to make serious advances toward the execution of it? If any such supposition can be made, it must be by some orator, by whom a correspondent conception has been formed of the state of the understanding on the part of the swinish multitude: my powers are unequal to it.