JB/015/320/001

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169

The march of Utilitarian principles has been obvious. They
have made their way by their native strength & excellence. How
should men be better occupied than in tracing the consequences of
conduct. Observation brought with it its corresponding results.

Men They perceived such and such actions were useful: they perceived
such and such other actions were mischievous. They took a particular
action of the sort for instance that was mischievous. By abstracting
the particular circumstances of time of place, of parties, they formed
a general idea – to that general idea they gave a name – that name
constituted a genus to which other acts of the same nature were
referred in common. If any one took into consideration that
genus or species of action (no matter which we call it) and said
of it that it was mischievous, the proposition in which he said as
much, the proposition in which he predicated mischievousness of
action formed a maxim of Utility.

But it is not probable that people put the quality of an action
that affected them upon this conspicuous footing in the early times
of which we are speaking of - those I mean times which preceded the formation
of laws. Men in general are not yet arrived so far even now. They
expressed+ + enveloped their sentiments in some such obscure terms as "right"
or "fitting" – wrong or unfitting, terms which served only to express
their disapprobation, and not the ground of it. It is one thing
(how strange soever the proposition may appear experience
has taught the truth of it). It is one thing for men to feel
pain from an act, and mark that act accordingly with a
sentiment of disapprobation: and another thing to fix explicitly
upon that pain as the cause of it. p.39-40.

Identifier: | JB/015/320/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 15.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	015	Main Headings	deontology
Folio number	320	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	linking material	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f169
Penner	sir john bowring	Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	5536
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