[415] ~Jacobinism~. The Société des Jacobins was the most famous of the political clubs of the French Revolution. Later the term ~Jacobin~ was applied to any promulgator of extreme revolutionary or radical opinions.
[416] See ante, Note 2, p. 248.
[417] ~Auguste Comte~ (1798-1857), French philosopher and founder of Positivism. This system of thought attempts to base religion on the verifiable facts of existence, opposes devotion to the study of metaphysics, and substitutes the worship of Humanity for supernatural religion.
[418] ~Richard Congreve~ (1818-99) resigned a fellowship at Oxford in 1855, and devoted the remainder of his life to the propagation of the Positive philosophy.
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[419] ~Jeremy Bentham~ (1748-1832), philosopher and jurist, was leader of the English school of Utilitarianism, which recognizes "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" as the proper foundation of morality and legislation.
[420] ~Ludwig Preller~ (1809-61), German philologist and antiquarian.
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[421] ~Book of Job~. Arnold must have read Franklin's piece hastily, since he has mistaken a bit of ironic trifling for a serious attempt to rewrite the Scriptures. The Proposed New Version of the Bible is merely a bit of amusing burlesque in which six verses of the Book of Job are rewritten in the style of modern politics. According to Mr. William Temple Franklin the Bagatelles, of which the Proposed New Version is a part, were "chiefly written by Dr. Franklin for the amusement of his intimate society in London and Paris." See Franklin's Complete Works, ed. 1844, II, 164.
[422] ~The Deontology~, or The Science of Morality, was arranged and edited by John Bowring, in 1834, two years after Bentham's death, and it is doubtful how far it represents Bentham's thoughts.