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Christmas Arrangements
By Tim Causer, on 20 December 2010
Bentham did not approve of Christmas or other religious holidays, which he regarded as an abject waste of waking time which could be put to better use.
He practiced what he preached, and often spent Christmas Day writing. There are a good number of manuscripts and letters composed by Bentham dated on or around 25 December. For example, on Christmas Day 1814 Bentham wrote about blasphemy:
‘Impiety—blasphemy—in no instance in which it was ever made, had any charge for which expression has been found that was ever expressed in either of those words any the smallest ground.
Yet with what symptoms have not the charges made on these words been accompanied? And this passion what has it had for its cause? In the first place, in this as on every other occasion the difference of opinion, and the testimony thus borne by the opponent to the intellectual weakness of him in whose breast the flame is thus by the opposition kindled: in the next place, by the sort of humiliation which in the mind galled by the yoke is produced by the idea of the case enjoyed by the sound which remains untouched by it’.
Similarly, on 25 December 1806 Bentham wrote to Lord Grenville on the subject of ‘Scotch Reform’, and on Christmas Day the following year discussed the process of appeal under Scots and English law.
We at the Bentham Project take a slightly softer line than Jeremy. As such, transcribers should be aware that though the Transcription Desk will remain fully functioning over the Christmas break, it will be largely unstaffed from Thursday 23 December until Wednesday 5 January when UCL is closed. Transcripts submitted during this period are unlikely to be corrected until we return and, likewise, emails sent during this period may not be attended to immediately.
If users have any questions about Christmas arrangements, please do contact us before Thursday.
In the meantime, all here at Transcribe Bentham would like to thank our users and Facebook and Twitter followers for their support since September, and wish everyone a very happy festive period, and all the best for the New Year.
See you in 2011!
3 Responses to “Christmas Arrangements”
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Nick67 wrote on 29 December 2010:
The quote in italics, it’s barely English! I’ve dealt with John Stuart Mills, MacCauley and Lord Durham, and they’re wordy. Very loooooong sentences abound. But that quote! What idea(s) is Bentham trying to express? It will do little good to transcribe from the written to the digital if the result remains unintelligible.
Even Harold Innis wasn’t that turgid!
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Tim Causer wrote on 30 December 2010:
Hi Nick,
You’re quite right, that quotation – which comprises a single manuscript folio – is somewhat difficult to read! This was an extract I picked at random from things Bentham had written on Christmas day to illustrate his work ethic, and is part of a series of folios which when read together, are more coherent. Indeed, the majority of manuscripts which our users are transcribing are generally coherent parts of a larger whole.
There are, however, a few folios on which Bentham simply jotted down snippets of ideas and phrases, but the Bentham Project regards these as important as well for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, Transcribe Bentham intends to reproduce each manuscript as faithfully as possible. The ultimate aim is to produce a full-text searchable digital repository of the Bentham Papers – users of this resource will expect minimal editorial interference with the original.
Secondly, when the Bentham Project editors put together a volume of the ‘Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham’, they identify all of the constitutent parts of the work in order to understand how Bentham wanted the final product to look, and how his thought was shaped over a period of time. This includes all the seemingly inconsequential snippets or incoherent folios, however awkward they are to work with.
It is easier to transcribe one of these snippets than you might think (honest!)
thanks for comment and interest in the project!
best wishes,
Tim (on behalf of the TB team)
Well, why break with tradition Tim!? If you know the folio number(s) of any of Bentham’s manuscripts that he wrote on Christmas day which have yet to be transcribed, then let me know. I rather enjoy doing a bit of dabbling in the writing/work department later in the evening on Christmas Day! (It comes from being a mature student for the past ten years I think!).
Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year everyone, and thanks for your help over the past three months!
D.