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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to William Wilberforce. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 11 (Memoirs of Bentham Part II and Analytical Index) [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. 11.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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Bentham to William Wilberforce.

“As a spot in the Carte du Pays, it may not be amiss that your protectorship should be apprised that, in the Duke of Portland’s reign, his prime minister, Mr B., took a very active, though a very civil and covert part, against Panopticon. He had projects of his own, of which he made no secret to me: and took more occasions than one to endeavour to make me regard my own as desperate. I learned from different persons, that being in as bad odour at the Treasury as I could be, without having the like pretensions on the score of justice, his applications experienced, if possible, less attention than mine.

“He once brought to my house his Grace cum totâ sequelâ suâ to see what was to be seen. At that time the works had long ago been taken to pieces and locked up: Panopticon model little better than a ruin; so that had I even been in a humour for officiating as showman, no tolerable raree-show could have been made. I endured the honour, not being able to escape it; but, without any of those advertisements which I received afterwards, I saw enough to see that prepossessions and purposes were far enough from being favourable. A point his Grace was clear about was, that a lantern so large as mine could not be so light as a long parallelogram room upon the London plan with glass in a small part of one of the short sides; and as the model of the lantern was enclosed in a room which is none of the lightest, experiment was unfortunately on his side. On another point, the existence of a spot within the building from whence every part of it might be viewed at once, I was equally unfortunate: a staff which had been set up with a sight-hole in it for the marking of that spot, was among the fractured limbs of it; and the assurances that I gave him that the fabric had been put together by measurements made by an architect for the express purpose of producing that effect, and that as many as had looked through the sight-hole had been witnesses of the production of it, were not fortunate enough to obtain signs of credence.

“I have despatched to the Taylor’s for a handsome suit of clothes, for what is acknowledged to be the best part of a book-maker, his book: when it comes home, I propose sending it, in quality of representative of the remaining part, on a visit of homage to his Grace’s successor, of whom I have better hopes.

Parve (nec invideo) sine me liber ibis,—a book in Russia, may, I hope, be accepted as an equivalent for a piece of card.”