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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Belief. - 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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Belief.

“Truth can operate only by supporting evidence: it cannot change sensation; it cannot change the sentiment of truth and falsehood. It is the ignorance of the powers of nature, of the extent of them, and of their limits, that is the cause of the credulity of the common people. Miracles and the secrets of nature to these behove to stand upon the same footing. To remove mountains by a word, may seem as easy as to draw fire from the clouds,—that is, according to vulgar speech, from heaven,—or to make iron swim.

“Offering rewards for faith, and punishments for the want of it, is, therefore, like offering rewards for, and punishing the want of, prejudice and partiality in a judge. To say, believe this proposition rather than its contrary, is to say do all that is in your power to believe it.

“Now, what is in a man’s power to do, in order to believe a proposition, and all that is so, is to keep back and stifle the evidences that are opposed to it. For, when all the evidences are equally present to his observation, and equally attended to, to believe or disbelieve is no longer in his power. It is the necessary result of the preponderance of the evidence on one side over that on the other.”