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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to his Brother. - 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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Bentham to his Brother.

“You must not stay lounging there beyond this week. Next week Pitt and Dundas are to come to see Panopticon together: and nobody can say how soon in the week; for the whole-school-days end this week, and though they don’t break up yet awhile, the next week and so on, will consist chiefly of half-holidays. If you don’t come in time to make the Rarce-show, I must turn you off, and take the jiggumbobs into my own hands. My fainting fits, at the thoughts of losing the dear body, are cured. I am assured distinctly that Panopticon would not be at all affected by it; but what is better, there is no danger of having anybody else to deal with; their myrmidons give out by authority that Dundas’s exit is no nearer than it was when he came in; and that Pitt himself knows no more who is to be the successor than the Pope of Rome. They professedly keep the seals dangling in the air to catch renegadoes: if they would lend them me awhile, I would set them a-dancing at the end of a fishing-rod before the bed-chamber window at a certain house.—Pounce would go the glass, as if the citoyen had been dashing at a mouse. Various of Pitt’s friends, yes, manifold, I am told, have been at him with mallets, beating Panopticon into his head: your duke, I suppose, mediately, if not immediately, of the number. Nobody can be better known anywhere, I am positively assured, than your humble servant is, and always has been, in the cabinet,—sins and blasphemies of all sorts, of course, included: so much the better, as they don’t seem to stand in the way of his salvation. What my enemies, if I have any, say of me, I am not told; but the account my friends give of me is, that I am mad; for which I make them a low bow; for madness, forsooth, being interpreted, means vartue: this last offer seems to be regarded as an egregious instance. Chuckle-heads, who have been used all their lives long to see chess, and battledore, and shuttlecock played at for nothing,—can’t bring themselves to conceive that anybody in his senses should be able to find amusement in a game that anybody has ever been paid for playing at. The offer, such as it is, seems to have come seasonably enough, and not to be in any great danger of being rejected. The deficiency seems to have been very generally felt, and openly enough recognised; and it was observed, that if nothing be gained, nothing can be lost by the experiment.”

The obscure, and sometimes contradictory phraseology,—the redundancy of words,—the awkwardness and frequent inversion of style,—and the various other imperfections of language which characterize our acts of parliament, were evils to which Bentham frequently sought to provide a remedy. A letter of his to Dundas on this important matter ought to be preserved.