A lecture delivered over the remains of Jeremy Bentham, Esq / [Southwood Smith].

  • Thomas Southwood Smith
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture delivered over the remains of Jeremy Bentham, Esq / [Southwood Smith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    For such feelings there is a foundation in the human heart. They belong, however, to that class of feel¬ ings which require control, and sometimes even sa¬ crifice. If, by any appropriation of the dead, I can promote the happiness of the living, then it is my duty to conquer the reluctance I may feel to such a disposition of the dead, however well-founded or strong that reluctance may be. The lesser evil must be chosen in preference to the greater. We may cause pain by doing that which is right, hut we shall cause still greater pain by doing that which is wrong. It was under the influence of these feelings that our venerated friend acted. It is under the influence of these feelings that we have acted, who have been entrusted by him with the execution of his will. How is it to be expected that the uninstructed and ignorant —that those whose minds are full of prejudice and error, and whose habit of yielding to every impulse we throw up, we allow the process of decomposition to go slowly on, and all this suggests to the fancy nothing but gloomy and dis¬ gusting images. The burning the body on a funeral pile, not only removes all possibility of mischief to the living, but many of the most painful associations connected with the thought of the dead• while the preservation of the ashes, a real part of the body, capable of being kept for ever in a form no longer offen¬ sive, might be associated with innumerable pleasurable, instead of painful, trains of ideas.
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