JB/087/020/003

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[Indirect Legislation]

Religion

4

Mischief of upholding applying
the penal force of
this Sanction by penal methods , to
points of political
indifference

Agenda and entendu — that is when
utility is out of the
question — if some
sort of folly
to be practiced
or some absurdity to
be swallowd

1. by introducing
the evil of punishment if applied
to agenda.

This then is the great and only article of religious faith, which for to consider nothing more than the mere temporal purpose
of political society, it is the interest and the duty
of the legislator to inculcate the prevalence adoption of which
can be of any use use assistance to the legislator:
any others can at best but be indifferent, and
very probably are very liable to be pernicious.
But any such article mischievous or not mischievous
in itself becomes is sure to be of mischievous
tendency as long as any coercive motives or indeed
any motives at all are set at work employ'd by
the legislator to favour its adoption . . The persons
who can be in a way to embrace it by whom it can be embraced be they who
they may at the time when the supposed law is first established come under one or other of the
descriptions following: either they are of opinion
with the article in question, or they are of opinion
against it, or they have not yet formed any opinion
about the matter. In the first Applied to the first case
the law is [unnecessary] and on that account, just
as any other law would be, pernicious: in the
second case it is productive of a degree of co-ercion
which by the supposition is useless, and as all
co-ercion is in itself an evil, on that account pernicious.

5

5
2. by implanting
falsehood if applied
to credenda — where
the belief is already adopted

But this is not all the mischief. That when
a man has once formed an opinion right or wrong about any
matter

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Identifier: | JB/087/020/003 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 87.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering	1-6
Box	087	Main Headings	indirect legislation
Folio number	020	Info in main headings field	indirect legislation
Image	003	Titles	note
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f1 / f2 / f3 / f4
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::r williams [britannia with shield motif]]]
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer	c. hamilton
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	27545
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