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Idea of a Compact.
You and I are ^Brothers^ Savages - [we are young, we have a Father] - we have been accustomed to seek our subsistence different ways - you by hunting - I by Fishing [x/You ???] ^I am^ eating ^a^ Fish ^that thou caught^ - you wish to partake of it - Brother, say you, GIve me some of that Fish - No, answer I, [x/ I reply founded, yo uwill give me loaf the ??? you kill to morrow - AGreed, say you - there then is a compact [formed between us]] I have no more than I can eat - But I will tell you what I will do - You will go out a hunting tomorrow, as usual. I shall go out a fashing - ^when you return?^ - Give me half what you catch, and I will give you half what I catch - Agreed, say you - Here then is a compact - Here are two intentions formed and declared - at least declared - Intentions not absolute but conditional. An intention of mine to do a certain ^mentioned^ act, of
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^provided^ you do another certain act mentioned, if not otherwise: an intention of your's to do a certain act, [x/provided] mentioned, provided I do another certain act mentioned - I not otherwise. This is the 1st compact we ever made - ^Is it likely we^ shall [x/we] keep it? I cannot say - it de- ^pends upon accidents^ [x/???] - But we will suppose it kept. - We will suppose it frequently renew'd & as often kept. Observe then how this pleasure on both sides has been augmented by the bargain. Each of us has had 2 dishes every day since the agreement for me he had before - Moderate variety in food makes it more agreeable - here is then the pleasure each of us had in eating increased in its intensity - probably in its duration; as weshall have eaten more and longer than before: at any rate no diminished - at any rate therefore increased in magnitude - so much ^ for the pleasure of fraction ?^ Each of us has had 2 chances of a graddener for one to had before - our pelasure there
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-fore has been encreased in [certainty] point of probability - The pleasure of expectation that has fille dup the intervals between fore -tion has therefore receive an encrease in the joint ratio fo the ^magnitude^ & probability of the pleasure offruction on which it was founded. But now the scene changes. You have caught a Hare. I have caught nothing but a few Minnowers? - ... Dinner time is come - We are both hungry - I have had bad luck, say I, today - Here is all the fish I have caught - hold here is half for you - Give me now half of your Hare. No say you, I shall eat it all myself, I can spare you none ---- Here there is the pleasure of fruition I had been feeding ^my imagination^ with the hope of, ... destroy'd at once - The physical pain ofhunger, ^not^ created? ^any longer& by any pleasure of expectation, but sooverd
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by a ew pain of regret, succeeds - [What is the cause of it? Tis you -] THe natural consqeuence of this is, that we should fall a fighting: but this part of the story is not to our present purpose - we will pass it over. As to this pelasure we ^such of us^ reaped while the compact remained violate, we have seen in what it consisted - that pleasure is now over - ^WHen^ I used to ^hold myself in readiness to share my fish with you it was only^ ??? I depended upon your making some partition of your game I fed now I can depend upon that no longer - There is no end of my disposition to renew this compact - It is ¨not¨renew'd - The pleasure resulting to both of us from the fulfilling of it is at an end - What ^then& is our condition - ^IS it^ the same as if we had never enter'd at any time into such com pact, nor enjoyed the advantages of it? Not so, ... but worse.
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Identifier: | JB/063/033/002"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 63. |
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063 |
law in general |
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033 |
introd.idea of a compact |
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002 |
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text sheet |
1 |
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recto |
c1 |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::gr [crown motif] [britannia with shield motif]]] |
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20222 |
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