Introduction y chap. Il, § m; Bowring, vol. I, p

129. Introduction^ cliap. II, § viii ; Bowring, vol. ï, p. 5. — Pour comprendre la valeur de l'expression <r principe ascétique », voir dans les biograpilics de Hume et d'Adam Smith les tracas que leur firent subir les fanatiques d'Écoî-se ; et les observations, de Smith sur la « moralité ascétique «des \ieilles Universités, sur Topposition, en morale, du système c libéral» et du système «austère». V. en particulier Rae, tifeof Adam Smithy pp. 81 et 124 sqq.

130. V. Mss. Univ. Coll. n* 69, dans un manuscrit de 6t4 pages intitulé Inserenda PrcfKiraUyry Prindptcs : Utility is not a Law. For utility is but a qiiality, a property ; a property an act has of increasing happiness; that is ofaverling pains or increasing pleasurcs. Utility is a quality ofmany kinds of acts. But a command is one particular kind of act itself. And a law is a command. — A dietatc of utility is not a law. For a dictate of utility is but some one's opinion that there is utility in a certain mode of conduct. An opinion is an act of the understanding. But a comman't is an act of the ruilt. And a law is a command. And thus we are cieared of another branch of the pretended law of Nature. — Et Bentham continue : Ile has understanding, and his understanding without the trouble of hcaring pro and con, pronounces an action to be rightor to be wrong. and so there is a Law of Nature for it or against it. This is the way D»" Pric^

(Pp. 4i-4G) NOTES. 200

makes Laws of Nature. Anothcr says he has a sensé on pnrpoBC : and it is this sensé that prononnces \vhat is right and what is wrong. This is the way that Lord Shaftesbury, D*^ Hutchinson {sic]^ and the triumvirate of Doctors lately slaughtor'd, nol lo say butcher*d, by D' Ppîe^tley, make Laws of Natnre. — Bentham avait donc lu et apprécié les remarques de Priestley sur Reid, Oswald et Heattie. — Dans les Traités, le principe de sympathie et d*antipathie s'appelle aussi principe «arbitraire». Faut-il voir dans cette dénomination un souvenir de Priestley reprochant k Reid d'avoir, en réfutant le scepticisme de Hume, introduit lui-même un scepticisme universel, c denying ail the connections v^hich had before been supposed to subsist between tiie several phaenomena, powers, and opérat ions of the mind,and substitutingsuch a numher oî iruiependenty arbitrât y y inslincHve principles, that the very enumeration of them is really tiresome»?