Principles of Morals and

24/Jeremy Bentham
the author’s sentiment or opinion as a reason for itself. The phrases
different, but the principle the same.
XV. It is manifest, that the dictates of this principle will frequently
coincide with those of utility, though perhaps without intending any such
thing. Probably more frequently than not: and hence it is that the busi-
ness of penal justice is carried upon that tolerable sort of footing upon
which we see it carried on in common at this day. For what more natural
or more general ground of hatred to a practice can there be, than the
mischievousness of such practice? What all men are exposed to suffer
by, all men will be disposed to hate. It is far yet, however, from being a
constant ground: for when a man suffers, it is not always that he knows
what it is he suffers by. A man may suffer grievously, for instance, by a
new tax, without being able to trace up the cause of his sufferings to the
injustice of some neighbour, who has eluded the payment of an old one.
XVI. The principle of sympathy and antipathy is most apt to err on
the side of severity. It is for applying punishment in many cases which
deserve none: in many cases which deserve some, it is for applying more
than they deserve. There is no incident imaginable, be it ever so trivial,
and so remote from mischief, from which this principle may not extract
a ground of punishment. Any difference in taste: any difference in opin-
ion: upon one subject as well as upon another. No disagreement so tri-
fling which perseverance and altercation will not render serious. Each
becomes in the other’s eyes an enemy, and, if laws permit, a criminal.
This is one of the circumstances by which the human race is distin-
guished (not much indeed to its advantage) from the brute creation.
XVII. It is not, however, by any means unexampled for this prin-
ciple to err on the side of lenity. A near and perceptible mischief moves
antipathy. A remote and imperceptible mischief, though not less real,
has no effect. Instances in proof of this will occur in numbers in the
course of the work.
4
 It would be breaking in upon the order of it to give
them here.
XVIII. It may be wondered, perhaps, that in all this no mention has
been made of the theological principle; meaning that principal which
professes to recur for the standard of right and wrong to the will of God.
But the case is, this is not in fact a distinct principle. It is never any
thing more or less than one or other of the three before-mentioned prin-
ciples presenting itself under another shape. The will of God here meant
cannot be his revealed will, as contained in the sacred writings: for that
is a system which nobody ever thinks of recurring to at this time of day,

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Principles of Morals and Legislation/25
for the details of political administration: and even before it can be ap-
plied to the details of private conduct, it is universally allowed, by the
most eminent divines of all persuasions, to stand in need of pretty ample
interpretations; else to what use are the works of those divines? And for
the guidance of these interpretations, it is also allowed, that some other
standard must be assumed. The will then which is meant on this occa-
sion, is that which may be called the presumptive will: that is to say, that
which is presumed to be his will by virtue of the conformity of its dic-
tates to those of some other principle. What then may be this other prin-
ciple? it must be one or other of the three mentioned above: for there
cannot, as we have seen, be any more. It is plain, therefore, that, setting
revelation out of the question, no light can ever be thrown upon the
standard of right and wrong, by any thing that can be said upon the
question, what is God’s will. We may be perfectly sure, indeed, that
whatever is right is conformable to the will of God: but so far is that
from answering the purpose of showing us what is right, that it is neces-
sary to know first whether a thing is right, in order to know from thence
whether it be conformable to the will of God.
XIX. There are two things which are very apt to be confounded, but
which it imports us carefully to distinguish:—the motive or cause, which,
by operating on the mind of an individual, is productive of any act: and
the ground or reason which warrants a legislator, or other by-stander, in
regarding that act with an eye of approbation. When the act happens, in
the particular instance in question, to be productive of effects which we
approve of, much more if we happen to observe that the same motive
may frequently be productive, in other instances, of the like effects, we
are apt to transfer our approbation to the motive itself, and to assume,
as the just ground for the approbation we bestow on the act, the circum-
stance of its originating from that motive. It is in this way that the sen-
timent of antipathy has often been considered as a just ground of action.
Antipathy, for instance, in such or such a case, is the cause of an action
which is attended with good effects: but this does not make it a right
ground of action in that case, any more than in any other. Still farther.
Not only the effects are good, but the agent sees beforehand that they
will be so. This may make the action indeed a perfectly right action: but
it does not make antipathy a right ground of action. For the same senti-
ment of antipathy, if implicitly deferred to, may be, and very frequently
is, productive of the very worst effects. Antipathy, therefore, can never
be a right ground of action. No more, therefore, can resentment, which,

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