1817 Nov r 1817

Not Paul

II. Doctrine

Ch. Asceticism

§.3. promoted by misappellation

and thus out of an illusion of the imagination produced by two mutually incongruous

imports associated together by unity of denomination has been produced an illusory

and pernicious system of morals /Ethics/ or to use Bentham’s more determinate

appellative of deontology.

If in the course of the operation by which the pleasure is obtained any thing of

physical impurity is produced, it may or may not have for its effect a diminution in

the value of such pleasure: the pleasure may thereby in a greater or less degree have

been rendered by it impure, i.e. attended with that sort of present uneasiness which

is apt to be the result of physical impurity, or with disease at some future period

when it has place in a certain degree of excess. But so long as after allowance made

for any such uneasiness or any such disease there remains any the least balance on

the side of pleasure, from no such physical impurity can any sufficient reason for

foregoing it be derived.

In how high a degree so ever the quality of physical impurity

may happen to belong to the pleasure in question, to regard moral impurity in any

degree as attaching /belonging/ to it upon that account is a mere abuse of terms

/words/—is an abuse of words an abuse, and in /in the/ proportion of /to/ the value

of the mass of pleasure by which mankind in general have by these means been deprived

or made to deprive themselves, a mischievous one.