Principles of Morals and

Principles of Morals and Legislation/129
would be attended with mischievous consequences; this would be far
from certain: but what comes to the same thing as if it were, it is per-
fectly certain when applied to the whole. It is certain, that if all of a
sudden the payment of all taxes was to cease, there would no longer be
anything effectual done, either for the maintenance of justice, or for the
defence of the community against its foreign adversaries: that therefore
the weak would presently be oppressed and injured in all manner of
ways, by the strong at home, and both together overwhelmed by oppres-
sors abroad. Upon the whole, therefore, it is manifest, that in this case,
though the mischief is remote and contingent, though in its first appear-
ance it consists of nothing more than the interception of a benefit, and
though the individuals, in whose favour that benefit would have been
reduced into the explicit form of pleasure or security, are altogether
unassignable, yet the mischievous tendency of the act is not on all these
accounts the less indisputable. The mischief, in point of intensity and
duration, is indeed unknown: it is uncertain: it is remote. But in point of
extent it is immense; and in point of fecundity, pregnant to a degree that
baffles calculation.
XVIII. It may now be time to observe, that it is only in the case
where the mischief is extra-regarding, and has an assignable person or
persons for its object, that so much of the secondary branch of it as
consists in alarm can have place. When the individuals it affects are
uncertain, and altogether out of sight, no alarm can be produced: as
there is nobody whose sufferings you can see, there is nobody whose
sufferings you can be alarmed at. No alarm, for instance, is produced
by nonpayment to a tax. If at any distant and uncertain period of time
such offence should chance to be productive of any kind of alarm, it
would appear to proceed, as indeed immediately it would proceed, from
a very different cause. It might be immediately referable, for example,
to the act of a legislator, who should deem it necessary to lay on a new
tax, in order to make up for the deficiency occasioned in the produce of
the old one. Or it might be referable to the act of an enemy, who, under
favour of a deficiency thus created in the fund allotted for defense, might
invade the country, and exact from it much heavier contributions than
those which had been thus withholden from the sovereign.
As to any alarm which such an offence might raise among the few
who might chance to regard the matter with the eyes of statesmen, it is
of too slight and uncertain a nature to be worth taking into the account.

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130/Jeremy Bentham
§ 2. 
How intentionality, etc;. may influence the mischief of
an act.
XIX. We have seen the nature of the secondary mischief, which is apt to
be reflected, as it were, from the primary, in the cases where the indi-
viduals who are the objects of the mischief are assignable. It is now time
to examine into the circumstances upon which the production of such
secondary mischief depends. These circumstances are no others than
the four articles which have formed the subjects of the four last preced-
ing chapters: viz., 1. The intentionality, 2. The consciousness. 3. The
motive. 4. The disposition. It is to be observed all along, that it is only
the danger that is immediately governed by the real state of the mind in
respect to those articles: it is by the apparent state of it that the alarm is
governed. It is governed by the real only in as far as the apparent hap-
pens, as in most cases it may be expected to do, to quadrate with the
real. The different influences of the articles of intentionality and con-
sciousness may be represented in the several cases following.
XX. Case 1. Where the act is so completely unintentional, as to be
altogether involuntary. In this case it is attended with no secondary mis-
chief at all.
A bricklayer is at work upon a house: a passenger is walking in the
street below. A fellow-workman comes and gives the bricklayer a vio-
lent push, in consequence of which he falls upon the passenger, and
hurts him. It is plain there is nothing in this event that can give other
people, who may happen to be in the street, the least reason to appre-
hend any thing in future on the part of the man who fell, whatever there
may be with regard to the man who pushed him.
XXI. Case 2. Where the act, though not unintentional, is unad-
vised, insomuch that the mischievous part of the consequences is unin-
tentional, but the unadvisedness is attended with heedlessness. In this
case the act is attended with some small degree of secondary mischief,
in proportion to the degree of heedlessness.
A groom being on horseback, and riding through a frequented street,
turns a corner at a full pace, and rides over a passenger, who happens to
be going by. It is plain, by this behaviour of the groom, some degree of
alarm may be produced, less or greater, according to the degree of heed-
lessness betrayed by him: according to the quickness of his pace, the
fullness of the street, and so forth. He has done mischief, it may be said,
by his carelessness, already: who knows but that on other occasions the
like cause may produce the like effect.

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Principles of Morals and Legislation/131
XXII. Case 3. Where the act is misadvised with respect to a cir-
cumstance, which, had it existed, would fully have excluded or (what
comes to the same thing) outweighed the primary mischief: and there is
no rashness in the case. In this case the act attended with no secondary
mischief at all.
It is needless to multiply examples any farther.
XXIII. Case 4. Where the act is misadvised with respect to a cir-
cumstance which would have excluded or counterbalanced the primary
mischief in part, but not entirely: and still there is no rashness. In this
case the set is attended with some degree of secondary mischief, in pro-
portion to that part of the primary which remains unexcluded or
uncounterbalanced.
XXIV. Case 5. Where the act is misadvised with respect to a cir-
cumstance, which, had it existed, would have excluded or counterbal-
anced the primary mischief entirely, or in part: and there is a degree of
rashness in the supposal. In this case, the act is also attended with a
farther degree of secondary mischief, in proportion to the degree of rash-
ness.
XXV. Case 6. Where the consequences are completely intentional,
and there is no mis-supposal in the case. In this case the secondary
mischief is at the highest.
XXVI. Thus much with regard to intentionality and consciousness.
We now come to consider in what manner the secondary mischief is
affected by the nature of the motive.
Where an act is pernicious in its primary consequences, the second-
ary mischief is not obliterated by the goodness of the motive; though the
motive be of the best kind. For, notwithstanding the goodness of the
motive, an act of which the primary consequences are pernicious, is
produced by it in the instance in question, by the supposition. It may,
therefore, in other instances: although this is not so likely to happen
from a good motive as from a bad one.
XXVII. An act, which, though pernicious in its primary conse-
quences, is rendered in other respects beneficial upon the whole, by
virtue of its secondary consequences, is not changed back again, and
rendered pernicious upon the whole by the badness of the motive: al-
though the motive be of the worst kind.
XXVIII. But when not only the primary consequences of an act are
pernicious, but, in other respects, the secondary likewise, the secondary
mischief may be aggravated by the nature of the motive: so much of

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