The Spirit of the Age Bentham (1748–1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social and legislative reformer. He was a major proponent of Utilitarianism, based on the idea of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number", which he was the first to systematise, introducing it as the "principle of utility". Hazlitt's link with Bentham was unusual, as Bentham was his landlord and lived close by. Bentham would sometimes take his exercise in his garden, which was visible from Hazlitt's window. The two were not personally acquainted, yet what Hazlitt observed enabled him to interweave personal observations into his account of the older man. Bentham was
The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham in many points of detail, and which omits Bentham's writings on religion; and also the 3-volume "Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings" (1952–54) edited by Werner Stark, which has likewise been subject to criticism. The series is being published under the auspices of the Bentham Project at University College London, whose library holds the majority of Bentham's surviving manuscripts. Since 2010 the Project has also run Transcribe Bentham, a project for transcribing Bentham's manuscripts through crowdsourcing, the output of which is intended, once edited, to appear in future "Collected Works" volumes. The Bentham Project is governed by the Bentham Committee, which was