The Online Library of Liberty

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• Errata—vol. III.
• Defence of Usury; Showing the Impolicy of the Present Legal Restraints On the Terms of Pecuniary Bargains; In Letters to a Friend.
• Letter I.: Introduction.
• Letter II.: Reasons For Restraint—prevention of Usury.
• Letter III.: Reasons For Restraint—prevention of Prodigality.
• Letter IV.: Reasons For Restraint—protection of Indigence.
• Letter V.: Reasons For Restraint—protection of Simplicity.
• Letter VI.: Mischiefs of the Anti-usurious Laws.
• Letter VII.: Efficacy of Anti-usurious Laws.
• Letter VIII.: Virtual Usury Allowed.
• Letter IX.: Blackstone Considered.
• Letter X.: Grounds of the Prejudices Against Usury.
• Letter XI.: Compound Interest.
• Letter XII.: Maintenance and Champerty.
• Letter XIII.: To Dr. Smith, On Projects In Arts, &c.
• A Manual of Political Economy: Now First Edited From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham.
• Chapter I.: Introduction. *
• Chapter II.: Analytical Survey of the Field of Political Economy.
• Chapter III.: Of Wealth.
• Chapter IV.: Of Population.
• Chapter V.: Of Finance.
• Chapter VI.: Operation of a Sinking Fund On the Production of Wealth.
• Chapter VII.: Noscenda.
• Observations On the Restrictive and Prohibitory Commercial System; Especially With a Reference to the Decree of the Spanish Cortes of July 1820.
• Preface.: Observations, &c.
• Section I.: Nature of the Prohibitory System.
• Section II.: Mischiefs of the Prohibitory System.
• Section III.: Causes of the Prohibitory System.
• A Plan For Saving All Trouble and Expense In the Transfer of Stock, and For Enabling the Proprietors to Receive Their Dividends Without Powers of Attorney, Or Attendance At the Bank of England, By the Conversion of Stock Into Note Annuities.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Plan For the Creation, Emission, Payment, and Eventual Extension, of a Proposed New Species of Government Paper, Under the Name of Annuity Notes.
• Chapter II.: Form of an Annuity Note. (see Table II.)
• Chapter III.: Comparison of the Proposed, With the Existing Government Securities, &c.
• Chapter IV.: Grounds of Expectation, In Regard to the Proposed Measure.
• Chapter V.: Financial Advantages.
• Chapter VI.: Advantage By Addition to National Capital.
• Chapter VII.: Advantage By Addition to Commercial Security.
• Chapter VIII.: Particular Interests Concerned.
• Chapter IX.: Rise of Prices—how to Obviate.
• Chapter X.: Reduction of Interest—proposed Mode Compared With Mr. Pelham’s.
• Chapter XI.: Moral Advantages.
• Chapter XII.: Constitutional Advantages.
• Chapter XIII.: Recapitulation and Conclusion.
• Appendix A.: Government Ought to Have the Monopoly of Paper Money, As Well As of Metallic Money.
• Appendix B.: Paper Money—causes Why Not Circulated By Government Without Interest, As Well As By Individuals.
• General View of a Complete Code of Laws.
• Chapter I.: General Division.
• Chapter II.: Relations Between the Laws Concerning Offences, Rights, Obligations, and Services.
• Chapter III.: Relation Between the Penal and Civil Code.
• Chapter IV.: Of Method.
• Chapter V.: Plan of the Penal Code.
• Chapter VI.: Of the Division of Offences.
• Chapter VIII. Titles of the Penal Code.
• Chapter IX.: First General Title of the Civil Code, * of Things.
• Chapter X.: Second General Title of the Civil Code. of Places.
• Chapter XI.: Third General Title of the Civil Code. of Times.
• Chapter XII.: Fourth General Title of the Civil Code. of Services.
• Chapter XIII.: Fifth General Title of the Civil Code. of Obligations.
• Chapter XIV.: Sixth General Title of the Civil Code. of Rights.
• Chapter XV.: Seventh General Title of the Civil Code. of Collative and Ablative Events.
• Chapter XVI.: Eighth General Title of the Civil Code. of Contracts.
• Chapter XVII.: Ninth General Title of the Civil Code. of the Domestic and Civil States.
• Chapter XVIII.: Tenth General Title of the Civil Code. of Persons Capable of Acquiring and of Contracting.
• Chapter XIX.: Of the Particular Titles of the Civil Code.
• Chapter XX.: Of Elementary Political Powers.
• Chapter XXI.: Of Elementary Political Powers— Subject Continued.
• Chapter XXII.: Plan of the Political Code.
• Chapter XXIII.: Plan of the International Code.
• Chapter XXIV.: Plan of the Maritime Code.
• Chapter XXV.: Plan of the Military Code.
• Chapter XXVI.: Plan of the Ecclesiastical Code.
• Chapter XXVII.: Plan of Remuneratory Laws.
• Chapter XXVIII.: Of Political Economy.
• Chapter XXIX.: Plan of the Financial Code.
• Chapter XXX.: Plan of Procedure Code.
• Chapter XXXI.: Of the Integrality of the Code of Laws.
• Chapter XXXII.: Of Purity In the Composition of a Code of Laws.
• Chapter XXXIII.: Of the Style of the Laws.
• Chapter XXXIV.: Of the Interpretation, Conservation, and Improvement of a Code.
• Pannomial Fragments.
• Chapter I.: General Observations.
• Chapter II.: Consideranda.
• Chapter III.: Expositions.
• Chapter IV.: Axioms.
• Nomography; Or the Art of Inditing Laws: Now First Published From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham.
• Chapter I.: The Subject Stated.
• Chapter II.: Relations.
• Chapter III.: Proper End In View.
• Chapter IV.: Imperfections Primary.
• Chapter V.: Explanations Relative to the Imperfections of the Second Order.
• Chapter VI.: Of Remedies. *
• Chapter VII.: Of Language.
• Chapter VIII.: Of the Perfections of Which the Legislative Style Is Susceptible.
• Chapter IX.: Of Forms of Enactment.
• Appendix. Logical Arrangements, Or Instruments of Invention and Discovery
• Equity Dispatch Court Proposal; Containing a Plan For the Speedy and Unexpensive Termination of the Suits Now Depending In Equity Courts. With the Form of a Petition, and Some Account of a Proposed Bill For That Purpose
• Section I.: Purpose Explained. Jeremy Bentham to the Honest and Afflicted Among Equity Suitors.
• Section II.: Equity Suitors’ Petition For Dispatch Court. to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, —
• Section III.: Dispatch Court Bill—some Account of It.
• Section IV.: Information Requisite From Petitioning Suitors.
• Equity Dispatch Court Bill: Being a Bill For the Institution of an Experimental Judicatory Under the Name of the Court of Dispatch, For Exemplifying In Practice the Manner In Which the Proposed Summary May Be Substituted to the So Called Regular Sy
• Editor’s Note.
• Preface.
• Preamble.
• Part I.—: Judiciary.
• Section I.: Judge Located, How.
• Section II.: Remuneration.
• Section III.: Registrar, &c.
• Section IV.: Eleemosynary Advocate.
• Section V.: Judges’, &c. Deputes.
• Section VI.: Judge’s Powers—exemptions—checks.
• Section VII.: Prehensors and Messengers.
• Section VIII.: Consignees; * Or Say, In-trust-holders.
• Section IX.: Grounds of Decision For the Dispatch Court Judge.
• Section X. ‡: Suits’ Comparative Suitableness; and Order of Cognizance.
• Section XI.: Auxiliary Judges and Accountants.
• Section XII.: Sittings, Times Of.
• Part II.—: Procedure.
• Section XIII.: Definitions. *
• Section XIV.: Examination of Solicitors.
• Section XV.: Initiatory Examination of Parties, &c.
• Section XVI.: Appropriate Intercourse, Constant and Universal, Secured.
• Section XVII.: Mutual Security For Forthcomingness of Persons and Things. ‡
• Section XVIII.: Evidence-procuring Money, How Provided.
• Section XIX.: Subsequential Evidence, How Elicited.
• Section XX.: Execution, How Performed.
• Section XXI.: Equity Court Costs, How Disposed Of.
• Section XXII.: Dispatch Court Costs, How Disposed Of.
• Section XXIII.: Eventual Retrotransference of a Suit to the Equity Court.
• Section XXIV.: Expense of the Court, How Provided For.
• Supplemental Sections:—
• Section I. Or XXV.: Bankruptcy and Insolvency.
• Section II. Or XXVI.: Henceforward Dispatch Court.
• Schedules to the Bill.
• Plan of Parliamentary Reform, In the Form of a Catechism, With Reasons For Each Article: With an Introduction, Showing the Necessity of Radical, and the Inadequacy of Moderate, Reform.
• Introduction.
• Section I.: History of the Ensuing Tract—alarming State of the Country and the Constitution.
• Section II.: Most Prominent Present Grievance, Gareisoning France.
• Section III.: Causes of the Above and All Other Mischiefs:—particular Interests Monarchical and Aristocratical, Adverse to the Universal—their Ascendency.
• Section IV.: Sole Remedy In Principle—democratic Ascendency.
• Section V.: Remedy In Detail: Radical Parliamentary Reform: Elementary Arrangements In This Edition of It—their Necessity.
• Section VI.: Differences Between This and the Original Editions of Radical Reform.
• Section VII.: Virtual Universality of Suffrage Further Considered.
• Section VIII.: Virtual Universality of Suffrage—its Undangerousness.
• Section IX.: Freedom of Suffrage Further Explained—seductive Influence—its Forms, Instruments, &c.
• Section X.: Bribery and Terrorism Compared.
• Section XI.: Purchase of Seats—in What Cases Mischievous—in What Beneficial.
• Section XII.: Secresy of Suffrage—its Importance Further Developed.
• Section XIII.: Exclusion of Placemen, &c. From the Right of Voting—mischievousness and Profligacy of the Opposite Arrangement.
• Section XIV.: Universal Constancy of Attendance—its Importance.
• Section XV.: Representatives—impermanence of Their Situation—its Importance:—objections—their Groundlessness.
• Section XVI.: Moderate Reform—its Arrangements—their Inadequacy.
• Section XVII.: Trienniality Inadequate;—annuality Necessary.
• Section XVIII.: Interests Adverse to Adequate Reform—support Given By Them to Moderate, to the Exclusion of Radical: Tories—whigs—people’s Men.
• Catechism of Parliamentary Reform; Or, Outline of a Plan of Parliamentary Reform; In the Form of Question and Answer; With Reasons to Each Article.
• Section I.: Ends to Be Aimed At On the Occasion of Parliamentary Reform.
• Section II.: Means, Conducive Towards These Ends.
• Section III.: Means—their Uses, With Reference to Their Respective Ends.
• Section IV.: Means Conducive to Aptitude In Members: I. Placemen Not to Vote, Nor to Be Seated By Election.
• Section V.: Means, &c. Continued.—ii. Placemen Seated By the King, With Speech and Motion, Without Vote.
• Section VI.: Means, &c. Continued.—iii. Elections Frequent—annual.
• Section VII.: Means, &c. Continued.—iv. Speeches Authentically and Promptly Published.
• Section VIII.: Means, &c. Continued.—v. Attendance, Punctual and General, Secured.
• Section IX.: Inconveniences Incident to Elections, and Election Judicature.
• Section X.: Election Inconveniences—means For Their Removal.
• Section XI.: Collateral Advantages, Referable to the Situations of Electors, Placemen, Lords, &c.
• A Sketch of the Various Proposals For a Constitutional Reform In the Representation of the People, Introduced Into the Parliament of Great Britain, From 1770 to 1812.
• Radical Reform Bill, With Extracts From the Reasons.
• Preliminary Explanations.
• Title of the Proposed Act.
• Preamble.
• Section 1.—: Seats and Districts.
• Section 2.—: Electors, Who.
• Section 3.—: Eligible, Who.
• Section 4.—: Election Offices.
• Section 5.: Election Apparatus.
• Section 6.—: Promulgation of Recommendations In Favour of Proposed Members.
• Section 7.—: Voters’ Titles Pre-established.
• Section 8.—: Election, How.
• Section 9.: Election Districts and Polling Districts, How Marked Out.
• Section 10.—: Vote-making Habitations, How Defined.
• Section 11.—: Members’ Continuance.
• Section 12.—: Vacancies Supplied.
• Section 13.—: Security For the House Against Disturbance By Members. †
• Section 14.—: Indisposition of Speakers Obviated.
• Appendix, Including General Explanations.
• Radicalism Not Dangerous. Extracted From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham. *
• Part I.—: Introduction.
• Section I.: Radical Reform Bill Recapitulated.
• Section II.: Persuasion of the Dangerousness of Radicalism—cause of It, and of the Vituperative Expression Given to It.
• Section III.: Terms of the Accusation,—speeches From the Throne, 16 Th July and 21 St November 1819.
• Section IV.: The Accusation In General Terms—counter-averment.
• Section V.: Plan of This Defence.
• Part II.—: Deference From the General Nature of the Case.
• Section I.: Conditions Necessary to a Man’s Embarking In Such a Design.
• Section VII.: Concurrence In Any Other Extensive Plan of Spoliation Impossible.
• Section VIII.: Concurrence of Any Constituted Authorities Impossible.
• Section IX.: Accomplishment Impossible—design Impossible.
• Section X.: The Talked-of Spunge No Proof of the Design.
• Part III.—: Defence From Experience In the Case of the United States.
• Part IV.: Defence From Particular Experience In the Case of Ireland: Years 1777 Or 1778, to 1783.
• Section I.: Analogy Between This and the Previous Case.
• Section II.: Democratic Ascendency, How Produced.
• Section III.: Fruit of Democratic Ascendency a Golden Age.
• Section IV.: Coincidence of Its Characters With Those of Radicalism.
• Section VI.: Extinction of Democratic Ascendency and Reform—restoration of Monarchico-aristocratical Ascendency, and Its Consequences.
• Conclusion.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL DIVISION.

A Code of Laws is like a vast forest; the more it is divided, the better it is known.

To render a code of laws complete, it is necessary to know all the parts which should be comprised in it. It is necessary to know what they are in themselves, and what they are in relation to one another. This is accomplished when, taking the body of the laws in their entirety, they may be divided into two parts, in such manner that everything which belongs to the integral body may be found comprised in the one or the other part, and yet nothing shall at the same time be found in both parts. This is the only case in which the division is complete.

§ 1.

Customary Divisions.

The customary divisions are—

First Division: 1. Internal law; 2. Law of Nations.—The first is National law, which takes its name from the country to which it refers; as English law, French law, &c. &c.

A detached part of this law which only concerns the inhabitants of a town, of a district, or of a parish, forms a subdivision which is called municipal law.

The second is that which regulates the mutual transactions between sovereigns and nations. This might be called exclusively international law. This division is complete, but its parts are unequal and slightly distinguished.

Second Division: 1. Penal law; 2. Civil law.—When this division is given as complete, international law has at least been forgotten.

Third Division: 1. Penal law; 2. Civil law; 3. Political law.—To distinguish this latter from international law, it would be better to call it constitutional law. If the second division is complete, what must be thought of this? Its third part must, in some shape or other, have been comprised in the other two.

Fourth Division: 1. Civil or Temporal law; 2. Ecclesiastical or Spiritual law.—A complete division, but unequal, and one of which the parts are much intermixed.

Fifth Division: 1. Civil law; 2. Military law.—Another division apparently limited to internal law.

This unfortunate epithet civil, opposed alternately to the words penal, ecclesiastical, political, military, has four different meanings, which are incessantly confounded with each other. It is one of the most unmeaning protean terms in all jurisprudence.

Sixth Division: 1. Written law; 2. Unwritten, or Customary law.

Laws may exist in the form of statutes or in the form of customs. The statute law is called written positive law; custom is a conjectural law which is drawn by induction from the former decisions given by the judges in similar cases.

Seventh Division: 1. Natural laws; 2. Economical laws; 3. Political laws, to which correspond,—the duties devolving upon an individual, family duties, and the duties of man in society. But where does man exist without society?—and if there be any such place, whence are its laws derived? What are these natural laws, which nobody has made, and which everybody supposes at his fancy? What are these economic laws, which are not political? The making of such divisions may be parodied by distributing zoology into the science of chimeras, of horses, and of animals! Such, nevertheless, is the nomenclature of legislation, according to the noblest spirits of the age, the D’Alemberts, the Diderots, and the principal of the economists. What, then, must be the condition of the science?

They also withdraw from the body of the law considerable portions which do not give rise to the idea of division, because the words which respectively express them have no correlative terms to express the residue of the mass of the laws. Maritime law—law relating to police, finance, political economy, procedure, &c.: these portions being extracted, what relation have they with the more formal divisions?—in which ought they to be placed?

Criminal law is a portion altogether undetermined of penal law. It is a law directed against an offence which has been called a crime. This distinction is the result of many indeterminate circumstances: odious procedure—enormous evil or reputation of enormity—evil intention—severe punishment.

Canon law. This is a sufficiently determinate portion of ecclesiastical law:—That portion of this law which is derived from a certain source.

§ 2.

New Divisions.

The divisions which follow are either altogether new—have only received a semidenomination—or have been but little considered at present. I announce them in this place, because of the light they shed upon the theory of the laws, and because of their practical utility.

Eighth Division: 1. Substantive laws; 2. Adjective laws.—This last is the name which I give to the laws of procedure, for the purpose of designating them by a word correlative to the principal laws from which it will be so often necessary to distinguish them. The laws of procedure could neither exist nor even be conceived of, without these other laws, which they cause to be observed. Whoever understands the meaning of these two words, as applied to grammar, will understand the meaning which I would attach to them when applied to jurisprudence.

Ninth Division: 1. Coercive and Punishing laws; 2. Attractive or Remuneratory laws.—The former employ punishments—the second employ rewards as their sanctions.

Tenth Division: 1. Direct laws; 2. Indirect laws.—I call those direct, which reach their end in the most direct manner, by directing or prohibiting the act to which they would give birth, or which they would prevent. I call those indirect, which, for accomplishing a purpose, employ distant means, attaching themselves to other acts, which have a more or less immediate connexion with the first. Prohibition of murder under pain of death, is a direct method of preventing assassinations: prohibition against carrying offensive weapons an indirect method* of preventing them.

Eleventh Division: 1. General laws; 2. Particular laws.—In the first are included those in which everybody is interested—in the second those which are directly interesting only to certain classes. This division is of great practical utility in facilitating a knowledge of the laws.

Twelfth Division.: 1. Permanent Laws; 2. Laws necessarily Transitory.—There are some laws which die of themselves, when the circumstance which gave birth to them has ceased. A law which refers to the conduct of a certain individual must die with him. Among transitory laws, the greater number are called regulations. Such are particular orders, laws which must and which ought to be changed, and which only correspond with a certain state of things.

Thirteenth Division: 1. Code of the Laws; 2. Code of Formularies.—A formula constitutes a part of the laws when it is directed by the legislature: a patent of creation, a record, a certificate, a deed, a form of petition, may all become part of the law.

Of all these divisions, the third into Penal Law, Civil Law, Constitutional Law, is the most complete, the most usual, and the most convenient. It is therefore the centre from which I shall cause all the parts to diverge.

As to writers on matters of jurisprudence, they may be ranged into two classes. Some treat of the laws of one country, explaining, commenting upon, and reconciling them; as Heineccius on the Roman laws, and Blackstone with reference to the laws of England.

The others treat of the art of legislation itself, either by explaining its preliminary notions, the terms of universal jurisprudence, such as powers, rights, titles, contracts, obligations, crimes, &c.; or seeking out the general principles upon which they ought to be founded, or examining the legislation of a certain country, to show whether it be feeble or strong.

Few works of law are of a unique and distinct character. Grotius, Puffendorf, Burlamaqui, assume successively, and sometimes at one time, all these characters. Montesquieu, in his “Esprit des Lois,” at first proposed to make a treatise upon the art; but in his last books the legislator assumes the antiquarian and the historian; and he can only be compared to the river, which after having traversed and fertilized noble countries, never reaches the sea, but is lost in the sand.

Hobbes and Harrington, who have treated only of the principles of constitutional law, have so done in a general manner, but with a view to local application. Beccaria, in his Treatise on Crimes and Punishments, has attended exclusively to them as a branch of philosophy.

[* ]Here it is clear, that a law which is indirect as to one act, becomes direct in reference to another. These terms are correct only when they refer to one and the same act, or to two different laws.