n contradistinction to, legal: that the expression is merely figurative; that when used, in the moment you attempt to give it a literal meaning it leads to error, and to that sort of error that leads to mischief--to the extremity of mischief.
We know what it is for men to live without government--and living without government, to live without rights . . . we see it in many savage nations, or rather races pf mankind (Bentham 31).
On this view, governments are not instituted of men, still less men preoccupied with individual rights; rather, men's rights are instituted of governments. If that is not the case, Bentham argues, civilization itself is in peril. His equation of the exercise of nat
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