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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Lord Holland 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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Lord Holland to Bentham.

“Holland House,December 18, 1811.

“Dear Sir,—

I return you, with many thanks, your very curious and interesting paper, from the perusal of which I have received much pleasure and instruction. There is no question but names have great influence on mankind, and that those you object to are unlucky. It is, however, somewhat less certain that it is in the power either of parliaments or princes, to change names; and it is very certain, that till the latter changes other things as well as names, nothing that you or I could recommend for the conciliation of Ireland, would be listened to with any chance of success.

“With sincere hopes that you may long enjoy your health, and pursue your interesting and useful researches, I am, dear Sir, your obliged friend and servant.”

When Madame de Staël was coming to England, she applied to Dumont to introduce her to Bentham. Bentham did not like her,—he called her “a trumpery magpie.” He abhorred her sentimentalities and her flatteries. She said to Dumont, “Tell Bentham, I will see nobody, till I have seen him.”—“Sorry for it,” said Bentham, “for then she will never see anybody,”—and he would not receive her, nor return her visit. He had a similar feeling towards Benjamin Constant. He called him “Constant the Inconstant;” and when a friend asked him for a letter to Constant, he said, “No! he is getting proud and aristocratical,—his philosophy is ipsedixitism,—you will differ from him, and get his ill-will for your pains: and I will not expose you to it.” But, to say the truth, I never observed Constant’s little infirmities to assume an unreasonable or repulsive character.

Bentham, for himself, had made it a rule to avoid, as much as possible, discussions whose results would leave matters where they were, with the risk of annoyance to both parties in the progress of the discussion. “Endeavour,” he said, “to ascertain the opinions of others, who are strangers to you, before you venture to introduce your own. Introduce them not, if their opinions are so remote as to be irreconcileable with yours. Say not, ‘I have a right to proclaim and defend my opinion.’ What is the English of all that? ‘I have a right to give pain,—to make enemies,—to have backs turned, and doors shut against me.’ ”

There was some difficulty at this period in obtaining a publisher for the “Introduction to the Rationale of Evidence.” More than one bookseller declined, giving as a reason, that the book was libellous,—a libel on the administration of justice.* The fate of “Elements of the Art of Packing,” which lay six years printed, but unpublished, had alarmed “the trade.” Mill endeavoured to persuade the parties, that their “hesitation was weakness,” but with little effect.

[* ] It was partly printed, but never published till, in the present edition of the Works, it was placed before the “Rationale of Evidence,” in vol. vi.