In his old age Bentham recalled his early optimistic belief that the imperfections in government would easily be swept away when the ‘correct and instructive encyclopaedical arrangement’ he was developing was adopted. He saw himself as ‘a great reformist: but never suspected that the people in power were against reform. I supposed they only wanted to know what was good in order to embrace it.’1 He was to be disappointed:

Instead of the universal sympathy, of which I had expected to see these graspings after improvement productive in those higher regions, universal antipathy-antipathy on the part of all parties-was the result: proofs of the fact came in upon me one after another; but sixty years had rolled over my head before I had attained to anything like a clear perception of the cause.2