Benthams Retorts
- By nothing but by fallacies could an argument such as this have been supported. Accordingly, what a tissue of them is that which I have been witnessing. Such a tissue of fallacies, all of them so trite and so transparent; fallacies forming so marked a contrast with the close and genuine reasoning which I have been accustomed to witness with admiration and delight.
- The question is not, “Can they reason?” nor, “Can they talk?” but rather, “Can they suffer?”
- As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends.
- Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.
- Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.
- He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn.
- The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.
- Hasty generalization, the great stumbling-block of intellectual vanity! Hasty generalization, the rock that even genius itself is so apt to split upon! Hasty generalization, the bane of prudence and of science!
- Every law is an infraction of liberty.
- I am sorry you have undertaken to publish a Declaration of Rights. It is a metaphysical work—the ne plus ultra of metaphysics. It may have been a necessary evil,—but it is nevertheless an evil. Political science is not far enough advanced for such a declaration. Let the articles be what they may, I will engage they must come under three heads—1. Unintelligible; 2. False; 3. A mixture of both. You will have no end that will not be contradicted or superseded by the laws of details which are to follow them. You are deluded by a bad example—that of the American Congress. See what I have said of it in my new 4to volume—the last page of the last note. Believe not that this manifesto served the cause. In my mind it weakened that cause. In moments of enthusiasm, any nonsense is welcomed as an argumentation in favour of liberty. Put forward any pompous generality—stick to it—therefore we ought to be free—conclusion and premises may have nothing to do with one another—they will not be the worse for that. What, then, will be the practical evil? Why this: you can never make a law against which it may not be averred, that by it you have abrogated the Declaration of Rights; and the averment will be unanswerable. Thus, you will be compelled either to withdraw a desirable act of legislation—or to give a false colouring (dangerous undertaking!) to the Declaration of Rights. The commentary will contradict the text. The contradiction may be persevered in, but this will only increase the confusion—heads will be weakened—the errors of the judgment will become errors of the heart. The best thing that can happen to the Declaration of Rights will be, that it should become a dead letter; and that is the best wish I can breathe for it. My first impressions have been strongly confirmed by looking over all the ‘projects’ which have hitherto had birth. It would be some remedy if any declaration were made provisional, or temporary. The National Assembly has more than once acted wisely in this particular; but would the impatience of the people tolerate the expression of doubts in a matter deemed so important?
- They are abominably stupid and uninteresting, with, however, some curious things interspersed, which I have marked sometimes with my nail, sometimes with doubling the leaf at top or at bottom, and sometimes with a pencil—you will read them in an hour. I thought I had marked the four volumes of negotiations; but it’s no matter, for there is so full a table of contents that you will easily find what’s interesting. I read them chiefly with a view of tracing the designs of the French upon the Low Countries, and the nature of their connexion with the Princes of Orange before Louis Fourteenth and William Third’s time. You will find several curious particulars upon both these heads, and the book, in general, well worth reading. I wish, if you read it, you would be so good as to mark for me whatever can be applied to modern times.
- The criticism is verbal: true, but what else can it be? Words–words without a meaning, or with a meaning too flatly false to be maintained by anybody, are the stuff it is made of. Look to the letter, you find nonsense–look beyond the letter, you find nothing.
- The logic of it is of a piece with its morality–a perpetual vein of nonsense, flowing from a perpetual abuse of words–words having a variety of meanings, where words with single meanings were equally at hand–the same words used in a variety of meanings in the same page–words used in meanings not their own, where proper words were equally at hand–words and propositions of the most unbounded signification, turned loose without any of those exceptions or modifications which are so necessary an every occasion to reduce their import within the compass, not only of right reason, but even of the design in hand, of whatever nature it may be–the same inaccuracy, the same inattention in the penning of this cluster of truths on which the fate of nations was to hang, as if it had been an oriental tale, or an allegory for a magazine–stale epigrams, instead of necessary distinctions–figurative expressions preferred to simple ones–sentimental conceit as trite as they are unmeaning, preferred to apt and precise expressions–frippery ornament preferred to the majestic simplicity of good sound sense–and the acts of the senate loadedand disfigured by the tinsel of the playhouse.