Introduction, chap. II, § m; Bowring, vol. I, p

129. Introduction, chap. II. ^ vin : Bowring, vol. I, p. 5. — Pour comprendre la valeur de l'expression « principe ascétique », voir dans les biographies de Hume et d'Adam Smith les tracas que leur firent subir les fanatiques d'Ecosse ; et les observations de Smith sur la « moralité ascétique «des vieilles Universités, sur l'opposition, en morale, du système « libéral » et du système «austère». V. en particulier Rae, lif'e of Adam Smith, pp. 81 et 124 sqq.

1 3i> . V. Mss. l'niv. Coll. n° 69, dans un manuscrit de 614 pages intitulé Iuserenda Preparatory Principles : Utility is not a Law . For utility is but a qnality, a property ; a property an act lias of increasing happiness; that is of averting pains or increasing pleasnres. Utility is a quality of many kinds of acts. But a command is one particular kind of act itself. And a law is a command. — A dictate 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 commun I is an act of the will. And a law is a command. And thus we are deared of another brandi of the pretended law- of Nature. — Et Bentham continue : He lias understanding, and his understanding without the trouble of hearing 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 Dr Priée

(Pp. 44-46) NOTES. 299

makes Lawa of Nature. Another says he lias a sensé on purpose : and it is this sensé that pronounces what is right and what is wrong. This is the way tbat Lord Shaftesbury. Dr Hutchinson {sic), and the triumvirate ot' Doctors lately slaughter'd, not to say butcher'd, by Dr Prie-tloy, make Laws of Nature. — Bentbam avait donc lu et apprécié les remarques de Priestley sur Reid, Oswald et Beattie. — Dans les Traites, le principe de sympathie et d'antipathie s'appelle aussi principe ^arbitraires. Faut-il voir dans cette dénomination un souvenir de Priestley reprochant à Reid d'avoir, en réfutant le scepticisme de Hume, introduit lui-même un scepticisme universel, c denying ail the connections which bad before been supposed to subsist between the several pbaenomena, powers, and opérations of the mind, and substitutingsuch a number of independent, arbUrary, instinctive prineiples, that the very enumeration of them is really tiresome »?