1819 Dec. 5 {A o.1} §.5.

Bentham’s Radical

Reform Necessary

II. Necessity

Utopia the Anti Reform hypothesis

1

When, for the purpose /in the view/ of excluding or lessening misrule and abuse and misrule in any of the shapes in which by the sacrifice of the universal interest to the particular interest of the rulers it is produced in such abundancy /so abundantly and continually/ reform or improvement in any shape is produced, the better adapted it is to its end the more […?] the torrent of hatred or contempt or {both} which is of course poured down upon it. Amongst the expressions /indications/ /effusions/ of contempt one of the most common is that which finds expression in the words Utopia

Utopian. Utopia is a country of /in/ which in the tyrant’s language the name there given it expresses in the words of Blackstone, “every thing is as it should be”. Utopian the man also is weak enough to suppose that any arrangement the effect of which if accepted /adopted/ would be to cause any one thing to be as it should be, has any chance for finding acceptance /being brought into existence/.

Now this country /state of things/ the impossibility of which is thus supposed by men is the very state of things of which in the country of which they are rulers they on every occasion assume the existence. Utopia is but another name for the kingdom over which they rule. So far at least as depends upon them every thing is as it should be: and not simply as it should be but so much beyond that which is to be seen any where else or but for what is seen there could have been conceived by any body as to be an object of admiration and envy to the whole universe besides.