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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Terræ Filius. - 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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Terræ Filius.

“The idea of patriotism, too liable to be worshipped in the nation at large, and which some unhappy conjunctures have of late years so effectually conspired to obscure, is nowhere devoted to more open contempt than at Oxford. The genius of the place is a compound of orthodoxy and corruption: corruption, to give it force in the world; and orthodoxy, to cover its advances from the eyes of the people, and from the scrutiny of the party’s conscience.

“Be silent, secret, discreet, accommodating; crush silent innovations, join yourself with alacrity to those who would stop up the inlet at which light may enter: save them the fatigue of examining projects which distress, gall, and stimulate their indolence, and the vexation of being obliged to adopt measures which oppose a bar to their cupidity. Insult not weakness, and ignorance, and mediocrity, with the demonstrations of wisdom; and lest you should be tempted, bar its entrance into your minds. For six days let the mammon of unrighteousness, of intrigue, of avidity of fraud, of insincerity, be in your hearts; and on the seventh the gospel of righteousness, or what is given you instead of righteousness, in your ears.

“Men there are who live in the habitual practice of what themselves call perjury, and in the flagitious tyranny of forcing it upon others; who rise to broken vows as to their breakfast, and sleep on them as their pillow.”