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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Dumont to Bentham. (Translation.) - 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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Dumont to Bentham.

(Translation.)

“Think of the torments of a translator, to whom the most essential words are wanting, in a language the most beggarly in philosophical elements. I have hazarded some without scruple where I could find analogy, as infirmatif, inculpatif, exculpatif, initiatif, confessorial, jactantieùx; but what am I to do with self-inculpative, deportment, disprove, trustworthiness, concealment, misrepresentation, inference, latentcy, latitancy, avoidance of justiciability, conclusiveness, veracious, mendacity, extraneous evidence, authorship, to purport, responsion, forthcoming, incompleteness, and multitudes besides? I have hazarded inference, (in the meanwhile,) for it seemed to me that consequence did not represent the English idea; but I have not yet fixed the terminology. In language, unexpected discoveries are sometimes made.

“I am not bold enough to judge le fonds. I am a disciple—I learn. I must look at the whole; but the manner in which you oppose informative to inculpative facts, appears to me wonderfully simple and luminous.

“With respect to form, I have found some obscurity from too much precision. But looking at the immensity of the work, I can see you could never have got through it had you delivered yourself up to developments. There are chapters which, emanating from an ordinary mind, would have been volumes. Here is the mine. Labour in it who will, not a hundred years will suffice for exploring and circulating its riches.”