What an admirable fellow is Jeremy Bentham! The basic principle underpinning his utilitarian ethics was that a ny action is right insofar as it increases happiness, and wrong insofar as it increases pain. H e spoke up for the abolition of slavery, corporal and capital punishment; for women's rights (including the right to divorce), for wider and better education; for the extension of the suffrage; for animal rights; for the decriminalization of homosexuality – and much more. And likeable too. While serious in his advocacies, this clever and brave man, whose humanitarian reform ideas were heavily criticised, enjoyed a sense of humour, demonstrated for example by the engagingly curious smile on his (admittedly wax work) face. and his name for his cat – The Reverend Sir John Langbourne. But it was the instructions he left for his public dissection, preservation and exhibition in his familiar clothes and chair, along with the request that his auto-icon be occasionally wheeled out t...