JB/106/231/001

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July 1810

So far from discovering my having discovered symptoms of any such desire, all that
in a course of observation commencing with the present auspicious reign I have observed,
all that I have ever read, all that I have ever heard, has
confirmed me in the assurance of a disposition as opposite to every
such desire as possible.

Of any theoretical enquiry of this sort there could
not be be but any other than one or other of two practical
uses, viz. the making of the state of the laws law
better than it is, or the preventing it from growing
worse. As to the making it better, that was universally
recognized recognized, or as now we say felt, to be impossible:
said for, this impossibility being certified, with one voice one and all,
by the only persons who have could no so much as pretend to know any thing about the
matter, viz. by lawyers of all sorts and sizes, as and
well by their had been not less loudly by those whose retainers had stationed placed them on the side of liberty for liberty than
by those whose retainers had engaged engaged them on the other
side, the people f a whether in or out of a jail, have never found any
more difficulty in giving credit to this certificate, in
contradiction to howsoever continually contradicted by their own feelings, than they used to find
all of them and continue to find some of them to
find still in believing in satisfying themselves that the morsel of bread they were swallowing
had contained flesh and blood, every day morsel the same
flesh and blood in it.

As to the preventing the law from growing worse,
this indeed would not indeed be performing an impossibility
but, what sort involved was quite as absurd, it would be preventing one. Before a thing can be worse it must
be in the first place bad: and, the law being the superlative
of bad every thing that is good, the idea of preventing it from being
worse involved involves in it a contradiction in terms.

Besides that the hands by which each at the expence of so much labour
it has been brought to its present state pitch of perfection, might very well surely
be upon trusted to for the slig comparatively slight degree of
altruism that could be necessary, to the preventing it even if it was bad, from growing
worse. I should have such a be useful in is at present

Identifier: | JB/106/231/001"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 106.
Date_1	1810-07	Marginal Summary Numbering	1-4
Box	106	Main Headings	fragment on government (defence of economy)
Folio number	231	Info in main headings field	defence or preface to fragment
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e1
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	34819
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