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 IV.

OF METHOD.

In what order should the different parts which compose a complete code of legislation be arranged?

There are some persons who have occasion to know the whole system of the laws; viz. those who are charged with their maintenance and application. Others have occasion only to know the part which concerns them, and of which it would be dangerous for them to be ignorant: these are the individuals who are bound to obey the laws.

In the arrangement of the laws, that which is best adapted for the generality of the people ought to be regarded. The multitude have not leisure for profoundly studying the laws: they do not possess the capacity for connecting together distant regulations—they do not understand the technical terms of arbitrary and artificial methods. The matter of a code ought therefore to be disposed in the order which will be most easily understood by the least skilful—in the order which is most interesting from the importance of the subjects—in a word, in the most natural order.

But what is the most natural order? It is the order according to which the law would be most easily consulted—in which the text which applies to a given case would be most easily found, and its true meaning understood. The best method is that which gives the greatest facility in finding what is sought.

Rules concerning Method.

1. That portion of the laws which most clearly bears the impression of the will of the legislator, ought to precede those portions in which his will is shown only indirectly.

For this reason, the penal code ought to precede the civil code, and the constitutional code, &c. In the first, the legislator exhibits himself to every individual; he permits, he commands, he prohibits; he traces for every one the rules of his conduct; he uses the language of a father and a master. In the other codes, he has less to do with commandments than with regulations and explanations, which do not so clearly address themselves to everybody, and which are not equally interesting to those concerned at every period of their lives.

2. Those laws which most directly promote the chief ends of society, ought to precede those, the utility of which, how great soever, is not so clearly evident.

In obedience to this rule, the penal code ought still to precede the civil code, and the civil to precede the constitutional code. There is nothing that tends more directly to promote the great ends of society, than the laws which prescribe the manner in which the citizens should behave towards each other, and which prevent them from doing mischief. Besides, since the idea of an offence is fundamental in legislation, and everything emanates from it, it is the first upon which the public attention should be fixed.

3. The subjects which are most easily understood, should precede those of which the conception is less easy.

In the penal part, the laws which protect the person, as the clearest of all, ought to precede those which protect property. After these may successively be placed those which concern reputation; those which relate to the legal condition of individuals; those which embrace a double object, as the person and property, the person and reputation, &c.

In the civil code, those titles which relate to things, objects material and palpable should be placed before those which relate to rights, objects immaterial and abstract. The titles which relate to the rights of property before those which relate to the condition of individuals, &c.

In the code of procedure, in virtue of this rule, the most summary courts would stand first.

4. If, in speaking of two objects, the first may be spoken of without referring to the second—and on the contrary, the knowledge of the second supposes a knowledge of the first,—it is right on this account to give priority to the first.

Thus, in the penal code, offences against individuals should be placed before offences against the public—and offences against the person before offences against the reputation.

In the civil code, notwithstanding another principle of arrangement, more apparent but less useful, it will be proper to place the condition of master and servant—the condition of guardian and ward, before that of father and child—husband and wife; because a father and husband are in certain respects the master, and in others the guardian, of the children and wife.

In virtue of this rule, the penal and civil code ought to precede the code of judicial organization and procedure.

To institute a process, is to demand satisfaction for an offence, or to require a service in consequence of a right. But the catalogue of offences, of services, of rights, will be found in the penal and civil codes; with these, therefore, we ought to begin.

Procedure is a means for attaining an end: it is the method of employing the instrument which is called law. To describe the means of using the instrument, before describing the instrument itself is an almost inconceivable reversal of order.

To establish a new system of procedure, and allow misshapen laws to subsist, is to build upon foundations which are crumbling, it is to rebuild a falling house by beginning at the top. Everything should be consistent and harmonious between the different parts of the code. It is impossible to establish a good system of procedure without good laws.

5. Those laws the organization of which is complete—that is to say, which possess everything necessary to give them effect, to put them in execution—ought to precede those of which the organization is necessarily defective.

A certain part of the political code is necessarily in this latter condition. There must be a stop somewhere in the establishment of laws. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?—The laws which govern the subjects ought to precede those by which it is attempted to restrain the sovereign power. The first—the laws for the people in populum—form a complete whole; they are accompanied by penalties, and a procedure which insures their execution. But the laws in imperium respecting the governors, unless they change their nature, cannot have for their assistance either the one or the other of these auxiliary laws. A punishment cannot be assigned for the offences of the sovereign, or of the body which exercises the sovereignty: no tribunal and no forms can be prepared for their trial;—all that human wisdom has been able to devise is reduced to a system of precautions and indirect means, rather than a system of legislation. The power of removal, for example, is employed to obviate the corruption of a representative body. The nature of the case does not admit of any judicial methods, any regular procedure.

International law is in the same condition. A treaty between two nations is an obligation which cannot possess the same force as a contract between two individuals. The customs which constitute what is called the law of nations, can only be called laws by extending the meaning of the term, and by metaphor. These are laws, the organization of which is still more defective and incomplete than that of political law. The happiness of the human race would be fixed, if it were possible to raise these two classes of laws to the rank of complete and organized laws.

The only point which is common to every existing body of laws, is, that they are all equally strangers to all these rules.

Justinian, in the Pandects and Institutes has followed two independent and incommensurable plans, which have determined the plans of all posterior jurists. Those who have been desirous of correcting Justinian, have only ventured to correct him by himself. Heineccius, the most sensible of the Romanists, has sought to refer everything to the order of the Pandects; and Beger has sought to bind up everything to that of the Institutes. Both methods are equally vicious.

Does not the idea of an offence govern everything in matters of law? Who would believe it? In the vast system of Roman law there is not a single entire chapter which treats of offences. The whole has been distributed under the three divisions—rights of persons, rights of things, suits at law: offences are incidentally mingled here and there. Those which are most connected by their nature, are often the farthest removed from one another, whilst those that are the greatest strangers touch each other.

Modern codes are not more methodical. The Danish code begins with civil procedure—the Swedish code begins with that part of the civil code which regards the condition of persons.

The code of Frederic, which bears the pompous title of universal, begins with the civil part, to which it confines itself and leaves it incomplete.

The Sardinian code presents at first certain penal regulations, but the first offences of which it treats refer to religion. Parts of the civil and constitutional codes follow, mingled with each other in continual disorder.

The code of Theresa is purely penal, but where does it commence?—first blasphemy, afterwards apostacy, afterwards magic. In the first part it treats of procedure.

Blackstone, who confined himself to making a picture of the laws of England, has only sought commodiously to arrange the technical terms most frequently used in English jurisprudence. His plan is arbitrary, but it is preferable to all those which have preceded him. It is a work of light, in comparison with the darkness which previously covered the whole face of the law.