Principles of Morals and

Principles of Morals and Legislation/45
personal appearance, and in his bodily organs and faculties: all which
differences will be taken notice of in their proper places.
XI. 5. So much for circumstances belonging to the condition of the
body: we come now to those which concern the condition of the mind:
the use of mentioning these will be seen hereafter. In the first place may
be reckoned the quantity and quality of the knowledge the person in
question happens to possess: that is, of the ideas which he has actually
in stores ready upon occasion to call to mind: meaning such ideas as are
in some way or other of an interesting nature: that is, of a nature in some
way or other to influence his happiness, or that of other men. When
these ideas are many, and of importance, a man is said to be a man of
knowledge; when few, or not of importance, ignorant.
XII. 6. By strength of intellectual powers may be understood the
degree of facility which a man experiences in his endeavours to call to
mind as well such ideas as have been already aggregated to his stock of
knowledge, as any others, which, upon any occasion that may happen,
he may conceive a desire to place there. It seems to be on some such
occasion as this that the words parts and talents are commonly em-
ployed. To this head may be referred the several qualities of readiness of
apprehension, accuracy and tenacity of memory, strength of attention,
clearness of discernment, amplitude of comprehension, vividity and ra-
pidity of imagination. Strength of intellectual powers, in general, seems
to correspond pretty exactly to general strength of body: as any of these
qualities in particular does to particular strength.
XIII. 7. Firmness of mind on the one hand, and irritability on the
other, regard the proportion between the degrees of efficacy with which
a man is acted upon by an exciting cause, of which the value lies chiefly
in magnitude, and one of which the value lies chiefly in propinquity. A
man may be said to be of a firm mind, when small pleasures or pains,
which are present or near, do not affect him, in a greater proportion to
their value, than greater pleasures or pains, which are uncertain or re-
mote; Of an irritable mind, when the contrary is the case.
XIV. 8. Steadiness regards the time during which a given exciting
cause of a given value continues to affect a man in nearly the same
manner and degree as at first, no assignable external event or change of
circumstances intervening to make an alteration in its force.
XV. 9. By the bent of a man’s inclinations may be understood the
propensity he has to expect pleasure or pain from certain objects, rather
than from others. A man’s inclinations may be said to have such or such

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46/Jeremy Bentham
a bent, when, amongst the several sorts of objects which afford pleasure
in some degree to all men, he is apt to expect more pleasure from one
particular sort, than from another particular sort, or more from any
given particular sort, than another man would expect from that sort; or
when, amongst the several sorts of objects, which to one man afford
pleasure, whilst to another they afford none, he is apt to expect, or not to
expect, pleasure from an object of such or such a sort: so also with
regard to pains. This circumstance, though intimately connected with
that of the bias of a man’s sensibility, is not undistinguishable from it.
The quantity of pleasure or pain, which on any given occasion a man
may experience from an application of any sort, may be greatly influ-
enced by the expectations he has been used to entertain of pleasure or
pain from that quarter; but it will not be absolutely determined by them:
for pleasure or pain may come upon him from a quarter from which he
was not accustomed to expect it.
XVI. 10. The circumstances of moral, religious, sympathetic, and
antipathetic sensibility, when closely considered, will appear to be in-
cluded in some sort under that of bent of inclination. On account of
their particular importance they may, however, be worth mentioning
apart. A man’s moral sensibility may be said to be strong, when the
pains and pleasures of the moral sanction show greater in his eyes, in
comparison with other pleasures and pains (and consequently exert a
stronger influence) than in the eyes of the persons he is compared with;
in other words, when he is acted on with more than ordinary efficacy by
the sense of honour: it may be said to be weak, when the contrary is the
case.
XVII. 11. Moral sensibility seems to regard the average effect or
influence of the pains and pleasures of the moral sanction, upon all sorts
of occasions to which it is applicable, or happens to be applied. It re-
gards the average force or quantity of the impulses the mind receives
from that source during a given period. Moral bias regards the particu-
lar acts on which, upon so many particular occasions, the force of that
sanction is looked upon as attaching. It regards the quality or direction
of those impulses. It admits of as many varieties, therefore, as there are
dictates which the moral sanction may be conceived to issue forth. A
man may be said to have such or such a moral bias, or to have a moral
bias in favour of such or such an action, when he looks upon it as being
of the number of those of which the performance is dictated by the moral
sanction.

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Principles of Morals and Legislation/47
XVIII. 12. What has been said with regard to moral sensibility, may
be applied, mutatis mutandis, to religious.
XIX. 13. What has been said with regard to moral biases, may also
be applied, mutatis mutandis, to religious biases.
XX. 14. By sympathetic sensibility is to be understood the propen-
sity that a man has to derive pleasure from the happiness, and pain from
the unhappiness, of other sensitive beings. It is the stronger, the greater
the ratio of the pleasure or pain he feels on their account is to that of the
pleasure or pain which (according to what appears to him) they feel for
themselves.
XXI. 15. Sympathetic bias regards the description of the parties
who are the objects of a man’s sympathy: and of the acts or other cir-
cumstances of or belonging to those persons, by which the sympathy is
excited. These parties may be, 1. Certain individuals. 2. Any subordi-
nate class of individuals. 3. The whole nation. 4. Human kind in gen-
eral. 5. The whole sensitive creation. According as these objects of sym-
pathy are more numerous, the affection, by which the man is biased,
may be said to be the more enlarged.
XXII. 16, 17. Antipathetic sensibility and antipathetic biases are
just the reverse of sympathetic sensibility and sympathetic biases. By
antipathetic sensibility is to be understood the propensity that a man has
to derive pain from the happiness, and pleasure from the unhappiness,
of other sensitive beings.
XXIII. 18. The circumstance of insanity of mind corresponds to
that of bodily imperfection. It admits, however, of much less variety,
inasmuch as the soul is (for aught we can perceive) one indivisible thing,
not distinguishable, like the body, into parts. What lesser degrees of
imperfection the mind may be susceptible of, seem to be comprisable
under the already-mentioned heads of ignorance, weakness of mind, ir-
ritability, or unsteadiness; or under such others as are reducible to them.
Those which are here in view are those extraordinary species and de-
grees of mental imperfection, which, wherever they take place, are as
conspicuous and as unquestionable as lameness or blindness in the body:
operating partly, it should seem, by inducing an extraordinary degree of
the imperfections above mentioned, partly by giving an extraordinary
and preposterous bent to the inclinations.
XXIV. 19. Under the head of a man’s habitual occupations, are to
be understood, on this occasion, as well those which he pursues for the
sake of profit, as those which he pursues for the sake of present plea-

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