Consequence

“ For if it follows that some vices are not greater than others, because no addition can be made to that chief good which you describe, since it is quite evident that the vices of all men are not equal, you must change your definition of the chief good. For we must inevitably maintain this rule, that when a consequence is false, the premises from which the consequence proceeds cannot be true. ”

“ “What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done. ”

“ Then comes a pause, during which he is thinking—we will not say 'too precisely on the event,' but taking his account with consequences: the result appears in the uttered conviction that the extreme possible consequence, death, is a good and not an evil. Throughout, observe, how here, as always, he generalizes, himself being to himself but the type of his race. ”

“ The consequence is a logical chaos which has in truth forfeited the name of logic. Similarly a goodness defined to make possible the deduction from it of moral evil or moral indifference loses the very distinguishing properties of goodness. ”

“ When the action of each and all is the necessary and sufficient cause of the whole damage. This condition is fulfilled when one commands or counsels an unjust act and another in consequence performs it. ”

“ How frightful a thing it is to consider what—under an overruling hand and will omnipotent—may be the consequences of the smallest deed we do. The consequences immediate, proximate, future! How many lives, what an amount of misery, how much damnation, may depend upon a light word, an idle jest, a sportive trick! ”

“ By the consequences I do not mean what the world will think of you, but, rather, the personal results of your action—what you must suffer while you are in the world, and what you must suffer when far beyond the world. ”

“ Very well, then, if a man's judgements determine everything, and if a man has unsound judgements, whatever be the cause such also will be the consequence. 5Do we all, then, have sound judgements, both you and your opponent? ”

“ "It is hardly credible of how great consequence before God the smallest things are; and what great inconveniences some times follow those which appear to be light faults. ”

“ But this whole paragraph is of a peculiar strain; the consequences so just and natural, and such a propriety in thinking, as few authors ever arrive at. "Since it has been the fashion to run down men of much greater consequence than I am ”

“ However ridiculous and pernicious we must admit the vulgar accessories of this creed to be, there is a certain analogy, not wholly absurd, between the consequences resulting to an individual during life from the virtuous or vicious, prudent or imprudent, conduct of his external actions, to those consequences which are conjectured to ensue from the discipline and order of his internal thoughts, as affecting his condition in a future state. ”

“ Nor in this is there any thing that need surprize us. The consequences of any Law, or of any act which is made the object of a Law, the only consequences that men are at all interested in, what are they but pain and pleasure? ”

“ You will not expect me to say that things are not what, in my judgment, they are, and that the consequences of them will not be what they will be. ”

“ And some are insolent by way of “showing their consequence,”—having, in reality, mixed so little with true people of consequence, as not to be aware that persons of high station are, with few exceptions, entirely free from the assumption of undue importance. ”

“ There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments—there are consequences. ”

“ The consequences of acts are the good or evil they do. According to you, therefore, the beauty of acts is either the utility of them, or it is nothing at all;—a beautiful ground on which to dispute with us, that acts are classed as moral, not on account of their utility, but on account of their beauty. ”

“ Whether the incidents, or the characters, are copied from life, is of little importance—The only question is, if the circumstances, and situations, are altogether improbable? If not—whether the consequences might not have followed from the circumstances?—This is a grand question, applicable to all the purposes of education, morals, and legislation—and on this I rest my moral—'Do men gather figs of thorns, or grapes of thistles?' asked a moralist and a reformer. ”

“ By accumulated experiences the man of science acquires a thorough belief in the unchanging relations of phenomena—in the invariable connection of cause and consequence—in the necessity of good or evil results. Instead of the rewards and punishments of traditional belief, which people vaguely hope they may gain, or escape, spite of their disobedience ”

“ What discrimination, what wit, what delicacy, what fancy, what lurking spleen, what elegance of thought, what pampered refinement of sentiment! It is like looking at the world through a microscope, where every thing assumes a new character and a new consequence, where things are seen in their minutest circumstances and slightest shades of difference; where the little becomes gigantic, the deformed beautiful, and the beautiful deformed. ”

“ It appears, however, that, among us, the classes of action to which it is attached also have two other characteristics in enough cases to have influenced the meaning of the words ‘duty’ and ‘expediency.’ One of these is that ‘duties’ are, in general, actions which a considerable number of individuals are strongly tempted to omit. The second is that the omission of ‘duty’ generally entails consequences markedly disagreeable to some one else. ”

“ He had philosophy enough to know that the quality of actions depends upon their consequences, and that these consequences are the rewards and punishments that no God can give, inflict, withhold or pardon. ”

“ When we look back upon events that have happened, we stand in a different position; we behold with a clearer vision as we embrace within our glance the beginning and the end, the act and the consequences. But the man who is doing the act may contemplate a very different result. ”

“ The consequences are already marked within the structure of the soul. So to speak, they are physiological. The thing effected by our in difference or by our indulgence is not the book of final judgment, but the present fabric of the soul. ”

“ Morals and Legislation, ch. vii. to xi.
III. THE SANCTIONS
Let us first take his definitions of the fundamental conceptions. All action of reasonable beings implies the expectation of consequences. The agent's 'intention' is defined by the consequences actually contemplated. The cause of action is the hope of the consequent pleasures or the dread of the consequent [Pg 256] pains. This anticipated pleasure or pain constitutes the 'internal motive' (a phrase used by Bentham to exclude the 'external motive' or event which causes the anticipation) . ”

“ Imaginative forethought of the probable consequences of a proposed act keeps that act from sinking below consciousness into routine habit or whimsical brutality. It preserves the meaning of that act alive, and keeps it growing in depth and refinement of meaning. ”

“ Let the consequences—the full import of these several laments be fully analysed—let these wishes be thoroughly examined, and it will invariably be found that, in a smaller or lesser degree, they all point to murder! ”

“ It is the development of the consequences of these laws that specially demands our attention in these lectures. We must have the courage to look at the facts unflinchingly, and deduce from them all the wondrous consequences they involve. ”

“ In things spiritual, as well as in things material, cause governs effect; and the laws which regulate consequences are equally stringent and immutable in both cases, although in the former they are not so easily traceable. ”

“ Certain causes will infallibly be succeeded by certain effects. From any particular combination of circumstances, certain determinate consequences and no others will result; those again will give rise to consequences equally determinate, and those in turn to others, and so on in an infinite series. ”

“ At one time we call its consequences moral or progressive, at another time we call them immoral or retrogressive, but these are some of the distinctions which the human mind creates for its own convenience, they have no validity in any other sense. ”

“ Nothing in an act is voluntary but the consequences that are intended. The idea of good consequences intended, is the pleasurable feeling of moral approbation; the idea of bad consequences intended is the painful feeling of moral disapprobation. The very term voluntary, therefore, applied to an act which produces good or evil consequences, 320 expresses the antecedence of moral approbation or disapprobation.”b ”

“ The nobler thing tastes better, and that is all that we can say. {188} 'Experience' of consequences may truly teach us what things are wicked, but what have consequences to do with what is mean and vulgar? ”

“ Then might I exemplify how an influence, beyond our control, lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. ”

“ The calculation of consequences; the being guided by what shall make most for peace, or any other desiderated end, is one p. 44of the snares to be most carefully shunned by any man who would occupy a distinguished place in the temple of justice. ”

“ From the manner in which you have expressed yourself, it is evident that there are points which puzzle you—you do not get a clean coup d'oeil of the whole regiment of facts, and their causes, and their consequences, as they occurred. ”

“ The systematic application of spurious principles has led to strange results, and latterly to still stranger disputes concerning the propriety of acknowledging the failure, and the best way of compromising the consequences ”

“ As to the logical consequences of this conviction of mine, I may be permitted to remark that logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men. ”

“ Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before—consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. ”

“ perhaps his might be one of the natures where a wise estimate of consequences is fused in the fires of that passionate belief which determines the consequences it believes in. ”

“ It is with me as with all men who have power to think, and who try from the past to extract guidance for the future. I see small errors producing greater evils; I see pitiful mistakes, which were thought nothing at first, swelling with bitter consequences,--but nothing more. ”

“ (Pity that consequences are determined not by excuses but by actions!) ”

“ The same slovenliness of thought, and subjection of the reason to fears, wishes, and affections, which enable them to accept a theory involving a contradiction in terms, prevents them from perceiving the logical consequences of the theory. ”

“ * * * Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. ”

“ Our actions are in our own hands, but the consequences of them are not. Remember that, my dear, and think twice before you do anything.” ”