JB/014/133/001

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16 Sept. 1814

Logic or Ethics Ch. Causes of Immorality

8

§.3. Religion misapplied

Instead of an account such as the above, what is at
of what sort, considered in the character of a discourse having
for its object the production of the causing the greatest happiness of the greatest
number in the present life, is the will of God are the discourses
contained in those sacred writings that sacred volume?

Discourses couched always in the most general terms
most commonly in very obscure or ambiguous terms,
and which to be saved from the reproach of having taken for their
object the instead of the beatification the destruction and in
the mean time the torment of the all {who paid any regard
to them} who took them for the standard of right and wrong
and for the model of human conduct, requires [+]
[+] unless restrained in
their import by words
of limitation as where to be found
to be
into a measure in a great measure either to be explained
away and so reduced to nothing or to be explained in a sense
quite different from if not opposite to the obvious import of the terms and phrases.

How long could the human race any country continue to subsist
if all property were at an end — if if among the of it, no such thing as property had place — against
security injury in any shape no security in any shape: if
in every shape, instead of being repelled, injury were, and
by the injured party himself, courted and encouraged?+
+ Just the Momt. known..

Oh but discourses of this sort ought not to be understood
according to the letter —

Well then if they ought not were not fit to be understood according
to the letter wherefore is it that they were pronounced? Why
not, on every occasion, employ such discourses, and such discourses
alone, and without danger of deception error, of being
subjected to productive of misconception, and thence productive of misconduct,
might on every occasion be have been employed?

But whether they could or could not have been otherwise
[+] (what is here the thing
in question)
such as they are, such unfortunately they are: such in the character
of a rule of moral action are they in comparison with
those rules which according to the principle of utility, and on account taken
in
in conformity and pursuance
to it might now at least
be established.

Identifier: | JB/014/133/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 14.
Date_1	1814-09-16	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	014	Main Headings	deontology
Folio number	133	Info in main headings field	logic or ethics
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e8
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	4896
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