★ Keep up to date with the latest news - subscribe to the Transcribe Bentham newsletter; Find a new page to transcribe in our list of Untranscribed Manuscripts
Conduct
First exhaust
all the types of
utility.
Finish with the
doctrine of rights
– acknowledging that
it is metaphysics
but raising that
metaphysics can
only be combated
by metaphysics.
Shewing that the
foundation is insubstantial
on this side as on the other
Title
Reform no
Improvement
Thoughts Essay on Parliamy Reform
in which the
as well
as danger of such
a measure is pointed
out and the arguments
in favour of
it thoroughly discussed.
---page break---
Americans why
Despicable – why
so quiet –
Because there are
no very large towns
No towns affording
mobs large enough
to influence the whole
country
Being chiefly husbandmen, their business
keeps them separate
quiet.
The domestic concerns
of each man
are more important
to him, than his
feeble share which
any one man can expect
to get in government.
No swarms of professional
men out of
practice – Lawyers
– Player – Abbés
News-workers – Artists
The business of Government
is with them not an end
but a means to
an end – secondary
and repose.
---page break---
Energy of the
Republican
character –
This energy is
in plain English
the propensity to
cut throats – the
appetite for blood.
There is certainly
more energy of
character is displayed
by footpads
and highwaymen, than
by peaceable day-labourers – Is
Robbery and Murder
on this account
to be preferred so
to be looked up to
as superior to peaceful
Industry?
All France is
become a great
Arena – to exterminate or be exterminated is the
question. To exterminate
is at
once the business
and the amusement
of life. Frequent
tragedies are become
misguide
produce no sensation
– they must
have real ones.
All virtue is swallowed
up in ferocity.
The social virtues
are become infamous.
---page break---
Real grievances
never the end.
If these have
been urged at
all, they have
been urged faintly,
and the mention
of them employ'd
evidently only as
a means.
They have never
been put in the
front line.
But if they
had been uniformly
regarded
as the end. the
odds would have
been that they
would have been
lost sight of in
the pursuit of the
means. The
order of the day
would be for
nobody can say
how long, the fixing
one's self in the
saddle, the rewards
of friends the punishment
and disablement
of the many. Incident
would shut up
after incident,
and what with
disturbances to
say nothing of civil
war, the amount
of the savings would
be spent before
the savings had been
effected.
---page break---
If they would petition
against real
grievances, leaving
the constitution to stand
as it does, they might
carry their print.
If abilities that
have been employ'd
in the so real
inequalities and supposed
defects in the
Representation had been
employe'd in
investigating, & developing
real grievances
they might have done
real service.
---page break---
Division of trades
non
You employ one
man to make laws
for you as you
employ another man
to make shoes.
If every man were
his own shoemaker
Taylor &c – shoes
and cloathes would
not be made near
so well as they are.
Kings Or the Stewards
of the people.
There is a reason why
this sort of Steward
should be Hereditary.
How few even among
men of education
are equal to the business
of government.
What a multitude
of defects to be corrected,
without rationing
these wilfully
suffered for the sake
of the personal interest
of those who suffer them.
A whole life employ'd
in nothing
else is not enough
to make men in general
masters of the
subject so well acquainted
with the subject
as it were
to be wished they
were.
---page break---
As it is cheaper
for a man who
has not been a Shoemaker
to buy shoes
than to make them,
so it is cheaper for
a man who has
not been bred a lawmaker
to employ
others to make laws
for him than to
make them himself.
---page break---
There is no medium
in a democracy such
as is proposed, every
man must be equal
to the whole business
of government.
To choose then he
must judge them
to judge them he
must judge their
measures – to judge
their measures he
must understand
what are the measures
that in every
case ought to have
been adopted.
---page break---
The people are
ill will – they
have no reason
no understanding.
They are intolerant.
Too ignorant to
doubt, every thing
is clear and certain
to them: so much
so that to differ
from them a hair's
breadth is criminal and intolerable.
Every thing question with
them degenerates
instantly to personality – Who are
you for?
A proposition
must be extremely
simple or their minds
can not take hold
of it – and when
they do, it were only
be through the medium
of their affections – Wilkes
and Liberty. Liberty and Wilkes.
Every thing that
concerns measures
reaches itself into
one measure – and
from that one measure
they get quickly
to the main.
|
Identifier: | JB/044/002/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 44.
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
1794 |
|||
|
044 |
parliamentary reform |
||
|
002 |
parly reform |
||
|
002 |
|||
|
rudiments sheet (brouillon) |
2 |
||
|
recto |
|||
|
jeremy bentham |
|||
|
13787 |
|||