one has passed, not to speak of nights, in which you have not engrossed more of my thoughts than I could have wished. . . Embrace ——, though it is for me, as it is by you, she will not be severe, nor refuse her lips to me as she did her hand, at a time, perhaps, not yet forgotten by her, any more than by me.' Lord Shelburne, it may be mentioned, was desirous that Bentham should marry Lady Ashburton, and he pressed Bentham's suit on the ground that he would be an excellent guardian of her son. 'My surprise,' says Bentham, 'was considerable: gratitude not inferior. But,' he complacently adds, 'the offer was of the sort of those which may be received in any number, while at most only one at a time can be profited by.'
While at Bowood Bentham was engaged in the preparation of his work 'The Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation.' It is in some respects his greatest work, the clearest exposition of the principle of utility, the most concise statement of his chief principles. Bentham defines the principle of utility as 'that property in any object whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered.' 'Nature has placed,' he says at the outset, 'mankind under the government of two sovereign motives, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we should do. On the one hand, the standard of right and wrong: on the other, the chains of causes and effects are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think, and the principle of utility recognises this subjection.' To advance this should be the object of the moralist and the legislator, and Bentlmm assails with force and wit the principles adverse to that of utility, and in particular those of asceticism, sympathy, and antipathy. The four sanctions or sources of pleasure and pain — physical, political, moral or popular, and religious — are defined. It is shown that 'the value of a lot of pleasure or pain' is to be measured according to its intensity, its duration, its certainty, its propinquity or remoteness, ita fecundity or chance of being followed by sensations of the same sort, its purity or cliance of not being followed by sensations of the opposite sort, and its extent or the number of persons affected by it. Pleasures and pains are classified. The reasons for treating certain actions aa crimes are considered. Starting from the principle that the object of all laws is the total happiness of the community, Bentham observes: 'All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil. Upon the principle of utility, if it ought at all to be admitted, it ought only to be admitted so far as it promises to exclude some greater evil.' To apply this to law, to distinguish cases unmeet for punishment, to presence a proportion between punisliment and offences, to classify the latter, to determine the fields of ethics and jurisprudence, is the object of the test of this treatise (Collected Works, vol. i.)
In August 1785 Bentham quitted England in order to visit his brother Samuel, who was then labouring to carry out Prince Potemkin's projects for transplanting English industries to White Russia. Bentham lived at Zadobras, near Crichoff, with his younger brother Samuel [q. v.], who was in the service of the Russian government. He carried on his studies in jurisprudence, and he sent home, in the form of letters to a friend, Mr. Wilson, his celebrated 'Defence of Usury,' in which he established the principle, then novel, that no man of ripe years, of sound mind, acting freely and with his eyes open, ought to be hindered, with a view to his advantage, from making such bargain in the way of obtaining money as he thinks fit. He also sent to England a series of letters on an inspection house or 'Panopticon,' which his brother had planned for the supervision of industry, and which Bentham thought would be of priceless value if employed in prison discipline. About the panopticon Bentham wrote volumes. It was for years his greatest concern. He corresponded with many of the statesmen of his time on the subject, and sought to interest all his friends in its success. It led him to investigate the whole subject of prison discipline and management, to which Howard's labours had first directed general attention. In his many letters and tracts on the subject and in his 'Principles of Penal Law' will be found the germs of most modern reforms in regard to the treatment of criminals.' Bentham, who was very sanguine as to the good defects of the panopticon, thus begins one of his tracts on the subject: 'Morals reformed, health preserved, industry invigorated, instruction diffused, public burdens lightened, economy seated as it were upon a rock, the Gordian knot of the poor laws not cut but untied, all by a simple idea in architecture.' The building which was to work these wonders was to be circular, with cells on every story of the circumference. In the centre there was a lodge for the inspector, who would be able to see all the prisoners without being himself seen, and who could give directions without
