Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CHAPTER V.: PLAN OF THE PENAL CODE. - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3

Return to Title Page for The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

CHAPTER V.: PLAN OF THE PENAL CODE. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


CHAPTER V.

PLAN OF THE PENAL CODE.

Penal laws, as we have already seen, are those alone which follow in a regular train, and form a complete whole. What are called civil laws, are only detached fragments belonging in common also to the penal laws. Laws deprived of all factitious sanction exercise so feeble an influence, that they ought not to be relied upon, if it be possible to do otherwise. Remuneratory laws, beside their weakness, are too costly, so that it is not possible ever to trust them with the rough work of legislation. There remains penal law, the only matter of which it is possible to construct the principal portion of the edifice of the laws. It is proper, therefore, to take the penal law, which alone embraces all, as the foundation of all the other divisions of the law.

To make a penal law, is to create an offence. The distribution of the penal laws will therefore be the same as that of offences. By determining, naming, arranging, numbering offences, we shall have determined, named, arranged, and numbered the penal laws. If this arrangement be well made, all the other kinds of laws will have been well arranged at the same time: order will have been fixed upon a manifest and unalterable foundation: the reign of Chaos will be at an end.

I shall begin with the arrangement itself. I shall afterwards show the considerations which suggested it, and the advantages to be derived from it. In order to understand the commentary, it is necessary to have seen the text.