A Table of the Springs of Action

Jeremy Bentham

Added by Bentham after the First Edition:

Since the printing of this Tract, the following apposite passage from Helvetius was discovered, and pointed out to the Author:

``Chaque passion a donc ses tours, ses expressions, et sa manière particulière de s'exprimer: aussi l'homme qui, par une analyse exacte des phrases et des expressions dont se servent les différentes passions, donneroit le signe auquel on peut les reconnoître, mériteroit sans doute infiniment de la reconnaissance publique. C'est alors qu'on pourroit, dans le faisceau de sentiments qui produisent chaque acte de notre volonté, distinguer du moins le sentiment qui domine en nous. Jusques-là hommes s'ignoreront eux-memes, et tomberont, en fait de sentiments, dans les erreurs les plus grossières.

Helvetius, de l'Esprit. Disc. iv. Ch. xi. final para.

In English, for those, who like me, are not fluent in French:

Each passion has then its turns, its expression, and its particular manner: therefore, the man who, by an exact analysis of the phrases and expressions used by the different passions, should give the signs by which we might know them, would doubtless highly deserve the gratitude of the public. Then we might, from the multitude of sensations produced by each act of the will, distinguish, at least that which rules over us. Till that time men will be ignorant of themselves, and will fall into the grossest errors.

Source of the text

This text was digitized from Volume I of the 1843 Bowring edition of Bentham's works.

Table of Contents

• Original title page
• Table Entries
  • No. I Pleasures and Pains of the Taste---the Palate, &c.
  • No. II Pleasures and Pains of the Sexual Appetite.
  • No. III Pleasures and Pains of Sense, of the Senses.
  • No. IV Pleasures and Pains derived from the Matter of Wealth.
  • No. V Pleasures and Pains of Power, Influence, Authority, &c.
  • No. VI Pleasures and Pains of Curiosity.
  • No. VII Pleasures and Pains of Amity.
  • No. VIII Pleasures and Pains of the Moral or Popular Sanction.
  • No. IX Pleasures and Pains of the Religious Sanction.
  • No. X Pleasures and Pains of Sympathy.
  • No. XI Pleasures and Pains of Antipathy.
  • No. XII Pains of Labour.
  • No. XIII Pains of Death, and Bodily Pains.
  • No. XIV Pleasures and Pains of the Self-Regarding Class.
• Explanations of the Table
• Observations on the Table
  • Section 1 Pleasures and Pains the basis of all the other entities: these the only real ones; those, fictitious,
  • Section 2 No Act, properly speaking, disinterested,
  • Section 3 Appellatives Euglogistic, Dyslogistic, and Neutral--Cause of their comparative penury and abundance, as applied to Springs of Action,
  • Section 4 Good and Bad---Attributives, applied to species of Motives: impropriety of the application---its causes and effects,
  • Section 5 Proper subjects of the attributives good and bad are consequences, intentions, acts, habits, dispositions, inclinations, and propensities: so of the attributives virtuous and vitious, except consequences: how as to interests and desires,
  • Section 6 Causes of misjudgment and misconduct---intellectual weakness, inborn and adoptive---sinister interest, and interest-begotten prejudice,
  • Section 7 Simultaneously operating motives---co-operating, conflicting, or both,
  • Section 8 SUBSTITUTION OF MOTIVES. Acts produced by one motive, commonly ascribed to another.---Causes of this misrepresentation