[40] Works, xi. 95; cf. J. Grote, Utilitarian Philosophy, p. 137.
[41] Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. xix. (xvii.), § 7 ff.
[42] Loc. cit., § 8, p. 144.
[43] "Ought" is inappropriate here according to Bentham's principles, since there is no question of punishment inflicted by a political or social or religious superior.
[44] Loc. cit., § 20, p. 148.
[45] Moral and Political Philosophy, book ii. chap. iii.
[46] This is clearly recognised by Bentham: "The actual end [as distinguished from the right and proper end] of government is," he says, "in every political community, the greatest happiness of those, whether one or many, by whom the powers of government are exercised."—Constitutional Code, book i., Introd., § 2; Works, ix. 5.
[47] The Emotions and the Will, p. 264.
[48] Cf. Bain, The Emotions and the Will, p. 287. Professor Bain says (Emotions, p. 276 n.), "we ought to have a written code of public morality, or of the duties imposed by society, over and above what parliament imposes, and this should not be a loosely written moral treatise, but a strict enumeration of what society requires under pain of punishment by excommunication or otherwise,—the genuine offences that are not passed over." This would certainly be very desirable, were it not from the nature of the case impracticable. Popular judgment as to a man's conduct,—what society imposes,—is one of the things most difficult to predict: it is under the influence of most heterogeneous causes, personal, industrial, religious, political, &c. I do not think, for instance, that any one could safely undertake to describe exactly the kind of actions which will infallibly call forth the censure of British public opinion, or that of the smaller and intersecting groups into which society is divided.
[49] Emotions, p. 288.