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SECTION III.: ITS NEEDLESSNESS DEMONSTRATED BY EXPERIENCE. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 6 [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. 6.

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

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SECTION III.

ITS NEEDLESSNESS DEMONSTRATED BY EXPERIENCE.

Unjustifiable in this case in the character of an instrument of punishment—inadequate and unjustifiable in the character of an instrument of compulsion, it is unjustifiable in every imaginable point of view.

To what possible ends or objects can it have been directed?

Not to the benefit of trade,—i. e. for the augmentation of the security of traders.

It is in this application of it—if to this purpose application had been made of it, that the colour for it, the colour put upon it, would have been most plausible. But it is precisely in this case in which there would have been the best pretence for it,—in which the pretence for employing it would have been most plausible, that it is not employed—that the insolvent is exempted from it. On giving up all his property, a person deemed a trader is under the name of a bankrupt exempted from imprisonment.*

[* ]Under the Insolvent Debter’s act, 7 G. IV. c. 57, imprisonment need not be perceptual; but before the doctor can take advantage of that act he must be imprisoned.–Ed.