work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5713,"",Searching in Past Masters ,2005-05-03 00:00:00 UTC,"1. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.
In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility†1 recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light. But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means that moral science is to be improved.
(p. 11)
",,15241,"","""Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.""","",2009-09-14 19:43:07 UTC,I.ii.1. Of the Principle of Utility
5713,"",Searching in Past Masters ,2005-05-03 00:00:00 UTC,"1. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.
In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility†1 recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light. But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means that moral science is to be improved.
(p. 11)
",,15242,"•INTEREST: Metaphor and declamation are not ""such means"" that will improve moral science.","""In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire [pain and pleasure]: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while""","",2009-09-14 19:43:07 UTC,I.ii.1. Of the Principle of Utility
7332,"",Reading,2013-03-09 15:42:22 UTC,"I believe, Sir, I have now touched upon all the objections of any consequence, which are made to the abolition of this Trade.--When we consider the vastness of the Continent of Africa; when we reflect how all other countries have for some centuries past, been advancing in happiness and civilization; when we think how in this same period all improvement in Africa has been defeated by her intercourse with Britain; when we reflect how it is we ourselves that have degraded them to that wretched brutishness and barbarity which we now plead as the justification of our guilt; how the Slave Trade has enslaved their minds, blackened their character and sunk them so low in the scale of animal beings, that some think the very apes are of a higher class, and fancy the Ourang Outang has given them the go-by.--What a mortification must we feel at having so long neglected to think of our guilt, or to attempt any reparation: It seems, indeed, as if we had determined to forbear from all interference until the measure of our folly and wickedness was so full and complete; until the impolicy which eventually belongs to vice, was become so plain and glaring, that not an individual in the country would refuse to join in the abolition: It seems as if we had waited until the persons most interested should be tired out with the folly and nefariouness of the trade, and should unite in petitioning against it.
(47-8) ",,19970,"","""[T]he Slave Trade has enslaved their [Africans'] minds, blackened their character and sunk them so low in the scale of animal beings, that some think the very apes are of a higher class, and fancy the Ourang Outang has given them the go-by.""",Fetters,2013-03-09 15:42:22 UTC,""