This little-known work by Jeremy Bentham, the great English philosopher and originator of utilitarianism, was considered so controversial when it was first published in 1822 that Bentham used the pseudonym of "Philip Beauchamp." The focus of this critical treatise is "natural religion," a school of thought that maintained one could use human reason alone, unaided by faith, to deduce the will of God from the natural order. As the creator of a system...