A table of the springs of action : shewing the several species of pleasures and pains, of which man's nature is susceptible: together with the several species of interests, desires, and motives, respectively corresponding to them: and the several sets of appellatives, neutral, eulogistic and dyslogistic, by which each species of motive is wont to be designated: to which are added explanatory notes and observations ... / By Jeremy Bentham, Esq.

  • Bentham, Jeremy, 1748-1832.
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A table of the springs of action : shewing the several species of pleasures and pains, of which man's nature is susceptible: together with the several species of interests, desires, and motives, respectively corresponding to them: and the several sets of appellatives, neutral, eulogistic and dyslogistic, by which each species of motive is wont to be designated: to which are added explanatory notes and observations ... / By Jeremy Bentham, Esq. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    impropriety in the nature of the act, i. e., in so far as the imputed impropriety has any intelligible grounds, a supposed mischievousness —a balance on the side of evil (pathological evil j—on the part of its consequences See the above, and the several other instances. 4. O11 this occasion, to take the case of a dyslogistic appellative, the error, in so far as there is any, consists in this: viz. that, on account of some accidental effect, which, on this or that occasion has been observed to be produced by the desire, the whole corre- sponding groupe of psychological entities— pleasure, interest, de- sire, motive- are, on all occasions, by the undistinguishing and uneludible force of this condemnatory appellative, involved in one common and undistinguishing censure : and, vice versa, when the censorial appellative is of the eulogistic cast, whatsoever mis- chievous effects are liable, and apt, to be produced by the desire, are covered and kept out of sight: whereas, to a truly enlightened as well as sincerely benevolent mind, it will appear, that, on each ind,- vidual occasion, it is by the probable balance in the account of utility, whether of pleasure or of pain, that the judgement, whe- ther it be ol approbation or ot disapprobation, ou^ht to be deter- mined. (7) [impassioned] 1. Between such as are simply censorial and such as are moreover impassioned, the line will almost every where be necessarily and irremediably indeterminate: on the question to winch ot the two classes the appellative belongs, the decision therefore cannot but be in a proportionable degree arbitrary. 2. J assioa being among the causes ot wrong judgement and con- sequent misconduct, any intimation of the eistence of any such feeling, in the breast of him by whom the appellative is applied may on that score have its practical use. 1 3. Having, wohout the form, the jorce of an assumption,—and having tor its object, and but too commonly for its effect, a like assumpt ion on the part of fheheareror reader,—the sort ofallegation in questio 1, ho.v ill-grounded soever, is, when thus masked, apt to e more persuasive than when expressed simply and in its own pro- per form : especially where, to the character of a censorial adding t.ie quali y and tendency iff an impassioned allegation, ii tends to propagate, as it were by contagion, the passion by which it was suggested. On this occasion, it seeks and finds support in that se- veral opinion, ot the existence of which the eulogistic or dyslogistic sense, which thus, as it were by adhesion, has connected itself^with t.ie import of the appellative, operates as proof. 4. Applied to the several springs of action, and in particular to pleasures and to motives, these censorial and impassioned appella- tives form no inconsiderable part of the ammunition employed in the war of words. r 3 5. Under the direction of sinister interest and interest-begotten prejudice, they have been employed in the character of fallacies or instruments of deception, by polemics of all classes: —by puli-