'What am I? What is man?' I had looked into a number of books for an answer to this question, before I came on Jeremy Bentham's simple and satisfactory explanation: Man is a mechanism, moved by just so many springs of Action. These springs he enumerates in elaborate tables; and glancing over them this morning before getting up, I began with Charity, All-embracing Benevolence, Love of Knowledge, Laudable Ambition, Godly Zeal. Then I waited, but there was no sign or buzz of any wheel beginning to move in my inner mechanism. I looked again: I saw Arrogance, Ostentation, Vainglory, Abomination, Rage, Fury, Revenge, and I was about to leap from my bed in a paroxysm of passions, when fortunately my eye fell on another set of motives, Love of Ease, Indolence, Procrastination, Sloth. |