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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Abuse and Use.—Both equally effects. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [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. 10.

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

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Abuse and Use.—Both equally effects.

“The abuse of the thing is as much the effect of it as the use is. When a thing has various effects, some good and some bad, it is not by calling the bad by the name of abuses that will make them the less its effects than they were before. An abuse is a bad effect: now a bad effect is a thing as much its effect as a good one: the one has as much claim to consideration as the other. Whatever the subject be, the balance of the one should never be struck till after the deduction of the other; whatever the subject be, the business is to bring both bad and good effects equally into account; nor are there any better founded claims to merit for blinking one any more than the other. The true merit of the speculator consists in blinking neither; but, if he makes any difference, in taking most pains to place those in a clear light that are most in danger to be overlooked.

“An institution is not to be judged of from its abuses—understand this of its abuses singly; but these, as well as its benefits have an equal claim to be taken into account; for if these are more numerous and incontestible than those, it is from these rather than from those that its character ought to be reported.”