Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow Memorandum, 1827. - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence)

Return to Title Page for The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Memorandum, 1827. - 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.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Memorandum, 1827.

Monarchy.—Sad lot of humanity under an absolute monarchy,—under an aristocracy-ridden, and by-corruption-working mixed monarchy. Disposed of according to the humour of a single being,—a human being,—though in character separated from every other in whose hands the same vast mass of power is not condensed. He lives encompassed with a perpetual cloud; deeds of darkness are all his deeds,—and thus far is he made the image of the divinity. With no other human being has he such intercourse, as every other human being continually holds with his fellow men. From his cradle, he is taught that all human beings are subject to his power, and created to his use. It is not in human nature to resist so flattering a position—of whomsoever else it may be the creed, his creed it will naturally be: and not being in the situation of anybody, what feeling can he have for anybody?

“To his favour men are indebted for their rise—to his displeasure, for their fall. How can the man who does anything which he had rather not have done, be other than an offender in his eyes!

“For half a century, the most worthless of the people have been enriching and amusing themselves with misgoverning and mistreating the rest. Tired of the monotony, Fortune has arisen from her lethargy, and, broom in hand, clears the cabinet of the worst of the vermin with which she had filled it, leaving some of the least bad, whom she found there, to give more or less variety to the scene.*

“Were they placed there for fitness for the business of government? Not they. But they had rendered themselves agreeable to the monarch’s humour and obsequious to his will. What removed them? Inaptitude for government? O no! It was a fit of ill-humour,—nothing more.”

[* ] In allusion to the dissolution of the Canning Cabinet in 1827.