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Transcriber's Note: Italics are indicated by _underscores_.




  Not Paul, But Jesus


  BY JEREMY BENTHAM, ESQR.,--The Eminent
  Philosopher of Sociology, Jurisprudence,
  &c., of London.


  With Preface Containing Sketches of His Life and
  Works Together with Critical Notes by John
  J. Crandall, Esqr., of the New Jersey Bar--author
  of Right to Begin and Reply




EDITOR'S PREFACE.


Jeremy Bentham, an eminent English judicial or jural philosopher, was
born in London, February 15, 1748, and died at Westminster, his
residence for six years previously, June 6, 1832. His grandfather was a
London Attorney; his father, who followed the same profession, was a
shrewd man of business, and added considerably to his patrimony by land
speculations. These London Benthams were probably an offshoot from an
ancient York family of the same name, which boasted a Bishopric among
its members; but our author did not trouble himself to trace his
genealogy beyond the pawnbroker. His mother, Alicia Groove, was the
daughter of an Andover shopkeeper. Jeremy, the eldest, and for nine
years the only child of this marriage, was for the first sixteen years
of his life exceedingly puny, small and feeble. At the same time, he
exhibited a remarkable precocity which greatly stimulated the pride and
affection of his father. At five years of age he acquired a knowledge of
musical notes and learned to play the violin. At four or earlier, having
previously learned to write, he was initiated into Latin grammar, and in
his seventh year entered Westminster School. Meanwhile, he was taught
French by a private master at home and at seven read Telemaque, a book
which strongly impressed him. Learning to dance was a much more serious
undertaking, as he was so weak in his legs.

Young as he was, he acquired distinction at Westminster as a fabricator
of Latin and Greek verses, the great end and aim of the instruction
given there.

When twelve years old, he was entered as a Commoner at Queen's College,
Oxford, where he spent the next three years. Though very uncomfortable
at Oxford, he went through the exercises of the College with credit and
even with some distinction. Some Latin verses of his, on the accession
of George III, attracted a great deal of attention as the production of
one so young. Into all of the disputations which formed a part of the
College exercises, he entered with zeal and much satisfaction; yet he
never felt at home in the University because of its historical monotony,
and of all of which he retained the most unfavorable recollections.

In 1763, while not yet sixteen, he took the degree of A.B. Shortly
after this he began his course of Law in Lincoln's Inn, and journeyed
back and forth to Oxford to hear Blackstone's Lectures. These lectures
were published and read throughout the realm of England and particularly
in the American Colonies. These were criticised by the whole school of
Cromwell, Milton and such followers as Priestly and others in England
and many in the Colonies in America. Young Bentham returned to London
and attended as a student the Court of the King's Bench, then presided
over by Mansfield, of whom he continued for some years a great admirer.

Among the advocates, Dunning's clearness, directness and precision most
impressed him. He took the degree of A.M. at the age of 18, the
youngest graduate that had been known at the Universities; and in 1772
he was admitted to the Bar.

Young Bentham had breathed from infancy, at home, at school, at college
and in the Courts, an atmosphere conservative and submissive to
authority, yet in the progress of his law studies, he found a striking
contrast between the structural imperialism of the British Empire as
expounded by Blackstone and others of his day, and the philosophical
social state discussed by Aristotle, Plato, Aurelius, the struggling
patriots of France, and the new brotherhood, then agitating the colonies
of America.

His father had hoped to see him Lord-Chancellor, and took great pains to
push him forward. But having perceived a shocking contrast between the
law as it was under the Church imperial structure and such as he
conceived it ought to be, he gradually abandoned the position of a
submissive and admiring student and assumed a position among the school
of reformers and afterwards the role of sharp critic and indignant
denouncer.

He heroically suffered privations for several years in Lincoln's Inn
garrett, but persevered in study. He devoted some of his time to the
study of science. The writings of Hume, Helvetius and others led him to
adopt utility as the basis of Morals and Legislation. There had
developed two distinct parties in England: The Radicals and
Imperialists. The Radicals contended that the foundation of Legislation
was that utility which produced the greatest happiness to the greatest
number.

Blackstone and the Ecclesiastics had adopted the theory of Locke, that
the foundation of Legislation was a kind of covenant of mankind to
conform to the laws of God and Nature, as interpreted by hereditarily
self-constituted rulers.

Bentham contended that this was only a vague and uncertain collection of
words well adapted to the promotion of rule by dogmatic opinions of the
Lords and King and Ecclesiastics in combination well calculated to
deprive the people of the benefits of popular government. He conceived
the idea of codifying the laws so as to define them in terms of the
greatest good to the greatest number, and devoted a large share of the
balance of his life to this work.

In 1775 he published a small book in defense of the policy of Lord North
toward the Colonies, but for fear of prosecution it was issued by one
John Lind and extensively read. A little later he published a