date

[C103-526] At top of sheet, Bentham
[C103-526]

At top of sheet, Bentham has noted: 'Fallacy Table a case[?] for [...?] rebuke.'

PRIVATE

The want of sufficient time for adequate discussion when carried on orally in a numerous assembly, has to no inconsiderable extent been held out by experience in the character of a real and serious evil.

In the margin, Bentham has noted at this point: ' See this touched upon in Notes in J.B.s Radical Reform as supposed, those which are not yet published the 4 th Feb y 1821.'

Bentham's Radical Reform Bill, with Extracts from the Reasons, London, 1819. [As yet can't find this point 'touched upon'.]

To this evil, the Fallacy Table presents a remedy to an indefinite extent, a powerful, and to the whole of the extent, an altogether unexpensive remedy.

In the text, Bentham has noted at this point: 'speak afterwards of the […?] belonging to this evil. Of the […?] of the only strict[?] remedy, […?] of the […?] uttered to each speaker.

'Also of the peculiar nature of the evil, in respect of the indissoluble connection with the great good, the encrease of the mass of appropriate talent in the Assembly.'
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    In this strain were they proposed to be addressed, these men, A o 1810. by M r Brougham in this same strain were they addressed A o 1819 by Sir James Mackintosh, in moving for a Committee on the penal laws. To give a man any chance of doing any thing with them in this same way they have ever been addressed, and must ever be addressed, till by radical reform (for it can not be by any thing less) the House shall have been purged of a class of men of whom the most compleat inaptitude in respect of every element of appropriate aptitude, is an effectual characteristic. In the scale of appropriate probity, in the scale of appropriate intellectual aptitude, to find their level a man must descend below that of the very dregs of the people. Oh what a portrait is here drawn of them, and by so experienced a hand! How cutting, yet how unquestionably just, the perhaps-unintended perhaps intended satyre! To avoid awakening the real terrors of some, the sham-terrors of others, all consistency all comprehensive acquaintance with the field of action must be abjured. When with idolatry in all shapes shall have become extinct, and the word wise-ancestors no longer an instrument of deception but a bye-word, with what scorn will not ancestors such as these be looked back upon by their posterity!
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    Description: At top of sheet, Bentham has noted: ‘ 2 Sept. 1819. Better not employ these 13 pages under Fallacies - not being sufficiently relevant: Quere whether any where, and where else?’

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    Description: [mainly in copyist’s hand]

    1819 Oct. 2 Nov 9 + +

    Benthams Radical

    Reasons

    §.1. Seats & districts

    Over number Remedies

    1

    4

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