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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

James Mill to Bentham. - 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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James Mill to Bentham.

“31st October, 1809.

“The thick mist of this morning,—which some treacherous appearances of last night led me not to expect, and drew me on to continue in my design of being with you this evening,—sets before my eyes, in such horrible array, the terrors of my walk, of the other evening, from Hampstead,—a walk of Stygian darkness, ‘with perils and with tremblings vironed round,’—(a night in a watchman’s box by the side of the road being the least of the evils with which it threatened,) that my ‘stomach stout,’ however, I smite upon it like Hudibras and Ulysses, and however I cry with the latter, τιτλαθι δη χςαδη χ. τ. λ. gives way, and bids me, with imperious voice, wait for clearer weather. Then comes your spirit, and cries, a bed,—a bed.—Hall,—oak,—there is such a kind of a place, in which there is such a kind of a thing as a bed.—But then, again, there comes the spirit of a doctor,—who was it? Boerhaave,—was it not? and it cries, ‘Vita brevis, ars longa.’—And then there is an internal spirit that whispers to self, ‘What a devilish deal, master of mine, you have yet to do before you are good for much,’—and all this raises such a tumult, that I am puzzled what to do. Virtue, however, asserts, that she cannot sanction the bed,—because that interferes with, not one day, but two,—and that so many are the little teazing interruptions I meet with, while in this London, that I do not get on as I ought to do.

“The Edinburgh Review was sent me yesterday morning,—Bexon* sadly mangled.—The mention of you struck out, in all but one place,—and there, my words, every one of them, removed, and those of Mr Jeffrey put in their place: the passage is still complimentary, but with a qualifying clause. What is to be done with this concern?—I am, indeed, seriously at a loss.”

[* ] “Application de la Theorie de la Legislation, Penale, ou Code de la sureté Publique et Particulière,” &c. Par S. Scipion Bexon, &c.—Reviewed in Ed. Rev. XV., 88.