"But the greatest happiness of the greatest number requires, that they should be not only imagined but proved: and this they shall now be, in so far as natural probability, aided by whatever support it may be thought to receive from the character of the narrator, can gain credence, for the indication given of a set of actings and workings, of which, for the most part, the mind, in its most secret recesses, was the theatre."

— Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Payne
Date
1776
Metaphor
"But the greatest happiness of the greatest number requires, that they should be not only imagined but proved: and this they shall now be, in so far as natural probability, aided by whatever support it may be thought to receive from the character of the narrator, can gain credence, for the indication given of a set of actings and workings, of which, for the most part, the mind, in its most secret recesses, was the theatre."
Metaphor in Context
4. The effects produced on sinister interest--on sinister interest in these high places--by the wounds thus given to it, may without much difficulty be imagined. But the greatest happiness of the greatest number requires, that they should be not only imagined but proved: and this they shall now be, in so far as natural probability, aided by whatever support it may be thought to receive from the character of the narrator, can gain credence, for the indication given of a set of actings and workings, of which, for the most part, the mind, in its most secret recesses, was the theatre. These effects the reader will see in the deportments of the various personages--keepers and workers of the state engines--in relation to the present work and another by the same hand; and among them will be found the several shining lights, to which, by the conjecturists, who thereby so clearly proved themselves not to have been members of the above-mentioned conclave, the work was, as above, ascrib
Provenance
Searching "mind" and "theatre" in Past Masters
Citation
Past Masters
Date of Entry
04/13/2006

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.