In Gallhofer and Haslam (1994), we argued that a critical and interpretative analysis of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century ‘accounting texts’ of Jeremy and Samuel Bentham can contribute to a critique of accounting today. In that paper we were concerned to indicate ‘negating’ properties of accounting. Here, we analyse the Benthams’ accounting texts with the more general aim of seeking to discover and bring out potentialities for the more beneficial future development of accounting.