date

1817 Dec 31 Not Paul III. Doctrine
1817 Dec 31

Not Paul

III. Doctrine

Ch. Asceticism

Well but however The pleasure is impure impure—viz. in your

eyes, for as much as so you say it is. Impure: but in what sense? impure in a moral

sense? Oh yes to be sure impure in a moral sense. But why and whence impure in a

moral sense? Let the question be answered truly it will be—because in my eyes it is,

if you will force upon me this declaration,—impure in a physical

sense. Well the being in that sense impure, it is in your eyes to such a degree

impure that you could never endure to make any such attempt as that of reaping it.

What I? forbid it heaven! Well then you never will: nor is it any body’s wish that

you should. But those who are in the practice of giving it to themselves, in their

eyes it is not so much as physically impure; or if it be, it

is not in such a degree impure as to put away /extinguish/ the desire, and do away

/exclude/ the pleasure: in their instance therefore that reason which in your

instance is so good and sufficient an one has no place: and for foregoing /losing/ or

so much as [...?] any other person to abstain from /forego/ /lose/ it, no other

reason have you found or can you find.

To do this /To me, doing this/ act would not afford me a pleasure: therefore I will

do my utmost to torment and destroy /afflict to the very death/ every one to whom it

is /it is/ or would be a pleasure. Such is the logic which has given birth to this

article of morality and to the legislation which has been grounded on it.

I should not like to do this—therefore I will punish you if you do it—such is the

logic which has given birth to this article of morality, and to the legislation that

has been grounded on /sprung out of/ it. And of this logic, this morality and this

legislation, the word of Paul, it will be seen and of Paul only, has been the

ground.
Similar Items
  • Title: [31 Aug 1811 1 Sept Jug. Util.]
    Description: 31 Aug 1811 1 Sept

    Jug. Util.

    7

    B.II.

    Ch.3

    7

    The idea that a man is not to chose his own pleasures

    but that others are to chose them for him is the height of

    tyranny. Given this he is not to do any thing for himself.

    Bounaparte is a less pernicious tyrant.

    For this folly and this presumption, and this mischievousness a sort of mask is made /by/ out of the ambiguous import of such words as pure and impure

    purity and impurity, clean and unclean, cleanness and uncleanness: and on no better or other ground than the identity of denomination, and the weak and distant analogy by /in/ which that identity /took its use/ was produced, a /psychological/ moral quality is inferred from the physical.

    Such or such an act /a mark/ where it is not accompanied with pleasure is disgusting to sense, and on this account may then may with propriety be /made/ termed unclean and impure. Be it so: for those /in that case/ being by the supposition not accompanied with preponderant pleasure, it has for its accompaniment pain—for this is the genus[?] under which the slightest imaginable as well as the most afflictive possible sensation of the disagreeable kind may be ranked—/in the way of sensation/ it has for its accompaniment pain and nothing else.

    But in the other case /case in question/.

    It is then from its being impure and unclean in the physical sense that its being impure and unclean in the psychological, the moral sense is inferred? Oh no: be it ever so impure and unclean in the physical sense no such attribute /quality/ as uncleanness or impurity will be attributed /ascribed/ to it in the moral, in the religious, sense, unless it be considered as accompanied with pleasure.

    In the pleasure consists the impurity and thence with it the blame the ground for censure /cause the supposed/.

    9.

    Mask made for this folly and tyranny out of the ambiguity of pure, impure, clean,uncleanness, unclean on no better ground than identity of denomination, with the distant analogy by which it has been produced, a psychologico-moral quality in inferred from the physical.

    10

    When not accompanied with preponderant pleasure, such or such an act is accompanied with disgust, i.e. with pain. Is it in that case that by the ascetic it is termed impure unclear? No: add the pleasure then only is it impure unclean. Of the pleasure alone is formed the ground for censure.
  • Title: [1819 Oct. 19 Not Paul Consult]
    Description: 1819 Oct. 19

    Not Paul

    Consult

    Ch. Paul’s Doctrine

    Doctrine Asceticism

    §. Utility, dictates as to Pleasure

     1. Insert before the improper mention of the proper sense of purity.

    2. Add that the use of the word impurity in the sense in which moral is inferred

    from physical is an act of tyranny.

    3. [...?] hypocrites. Hypocrites 1. Religious. 2. Philosophical or moral.

    2. As to quality, considered apart from quantity, it is in the eye of reason a

    matter of perfect /the most entire/ indifference. For the sake of having it or not

    having it of such or such a quality, for what reasons should any the least particle

    /portion/ of the attainable quantity be given up.

    To the head /consideration/ of quality belongs that of the

    source from which it is derived—the instrument or instruments, interior or exterior

    to the bodily or mental frame of the individual in question by which (to change the

    metaphor) it is reaped.

    By the ascetic principle—and this is one of the delusions by which it operates—

    pleasure being [taken for] the subject the words pure and impure and pure are in use

    to be employed for the designation of two opposite attributes of which it is regarded

    as susceptible. In this case the groundwork of the idea is impurity alias turpitude

    in the physical sense: and from the circumstance of the physical disgust which in

    this case will in the instance of a number of persons more or less considerable have

    place, impurity or /and/ turpitude in /on the part of/ the act by which the physical

    impurity or turpitude is produced is inferred. and again from this imaginary moral

    turpitude, the existence of a sort of demand for punishment to be employed either for

    the torment of the offender or for the prevention of the offence, or both.

    [Now /In this case/ then in plain language what is the logic that is at the bottom

    of this rhetoric. It is this.]

    In the shape of disgust or some other shape I for my part should feel pain were I to

    perform this act; therefore if you to whom it would not be productive not of pain but

    of pleasure, were to perform it you ought to be made to suffer pain under the name of

    punishment.
  • Title: [1817 Nov r 19. Not Paul II]
    Description: 1817 Nov r 19.

    Not Paul

    II. Doctrine

    Ch. Asceticism

    §.3. promoted by misappellation

    §.3. — how promoted by inapposite nomenclature—by the word

    impurity improperly applied

    Applied to pleasure and pain, the

    attributes pure and purity, with their

    opposites impure and impurity have in

    one sense a meaning which is at once determinate and rational. This sense is that in

    which a pleasure is considered as pure in so far as it is

    unattended with a feeling or feelings of the opposite description viz. pain or pains

    /nature: viz. that of pain/: and in which in like manner a pain is considered as pure

    in so far as it is unattended by a feeling or feelings of the opposite description

    /nature/ viz. a pleasure or pleasures /that of pleasure/.

    In this sense and in this alone are they employed by Bentham, in all his several

    works.

    See Introd. to the principles of Morals and Legislation: Traités de Legislation

    penale et civile par Dumont: Springs of Action Table, &c.

    Applied to pleasure of pain in any other sense they have not either of them any

    determinate meaning: the use of them has it source /root/ in illusion, and illusion

    in proportion to the influence exercised by the propositions /discourses/ in which

    they are employed is the result.

    In this indeterminate sense [though with equal propriety they might be either]

    scarcely are they to be seen applied to pain: scarcely applied otherwise than to

    pleasure.

    Applied /On the occasion of the application made of them/ to pleasure, from a sort

    /the idea/ of physical impurity, real or imaginary, a moral species of moral impurity

    is imagined and ascribed to it: and from the moral impurity thus groundlessly

    ascribed to it a pretence is made for endeavouring to subject to odium and even if

    possible to punishment every person who shall have been or have sought to be a

    partaker of it: and