The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• 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 IX.

FIRST GENERAL TITLE OF THE CIVIL CODE,*

Of Things.

We begin with things. Robinson Crusoe is represented as living many years, without exercising his power over persons. He could not have been so long without exercising his power over things.

The species into which things may be divided are innumerable, and there is not one of them which may not fall under the cognizance of the law; since all the productions of art, all the objects in nature, are comprised within its domain. If it were necessary to mention each separately, the Encyclopædia itself would only form one chapter of legislation. But in this immensity, we have occasion only to notice those things respecting which the law has established differences in the manner of acting with regard to them—those things which have served it as a foundation upon which to build obligations and rights. By means of certain general divisions, we shall be able easily to govern this vast subject. We shall arrange them according to their source, their employment, and their nature.

Division I. Things are either natural or artificial.—To the first head may be referred those things to which their respective names may be applied when in the condition in which they come from the hands of nature, before they have been modified by the labour of man; that is to say, the earth, its different parts, and the productions to which it gives birth. Under the name of artificial or factitious, those may be comprehended which only acquire their respective names in virtue of qualities given them by human labour. Hence, a field, though cultivated—a vine, though planted—even a live hedge, would be natural things. A house, a wine-press, a dead hedge, would be artificial things. These two classes will meet in an infinity of points, and there is no fixed line of demarcation by which to separate them. Still, a line of demarcation will be absolutely necessary in a code of laws. It is necessary to have one among those objects with which the law intermeddles for the sake of peace; without it, disputes would be interminable. The line will be more or less arbitrary, but this is of no consequence, provided that it exist.

Division II. Things moveable and things immoveable.—Another positive line of demarcation. Houses are generally immoveable. But they have been made of wood, and of iron, and have traversed along the roads.† Like the Scythians of old, the Tartars of our days are only lodged in this manner. Ships are houses. Some ships are little floating towns. Mountains and hills sometimes slip down. Large tracts of land have changed their sites. Such events are common in volcanic countries. To these ravages of nature the scourge of chicanery too often succeeds, and sits down among the ruins to dispute their possession.

Division III. Things employable and things consumable.—The first may be used without changing their form;—the second cannot be used without being destroyed. To the first head may be referred houses, vessels, &c.;—to the second, eatables and drinkables, &c. The latter are the things fungible of the Roman law. Take another step, and we shall find ourselves stopt short for want of a line of demarcation. This wood, which may serve either for building a house, or warming an oven; this ox, which may draw a plough, or which may be driven to the butchers: are these things, or are they not things fungible? All nature is one continual round of revolutions: everything which she employs, she consumes; everything which she destroys under one form, she reproduces under another. The distinction between these two conditions, though sufficiently clear in certain objects, is too slight in the general system of things to be of great utility.

Division IV. Things which are individually valuable and things which are valuable in mass.—To the first head may without difficulty be referred houses, furniture, clothes; to the latter, metal in the rough state, seeds, &c. This distinction is still very uncertain, and does not proceed far before it produces confusion. Useful in some cases, it would be useless in a multitude of others. Many things may be valued indifferently in both manners. The legislator, in tracing these divisions, would require a logician at his side; but surveyors are required for land, the surveying of ideas is an operation not less necessary, and more difficult.

Division V. This is one which the Roman lawyers have not dreamed of, and which is worth all the others. Since they have classed animals among things, they ought to have distinguished things into two classes,—sensible and insensible. The brazen cow of Myron was, in their eyes, of the same class as the living cow which he employed as his model. But how should they have distinguished the inferior animals from things—they among whom man himself, when he had the misfortune to fall into a state of slavery, was no more than a thing? And who shall say how much the condition of animals and slaves was aggravated by this cold and cruel classification? The law which ought to have protected them, began by giving an idea of them which degraded them. It spoke of them as if it would extinguish in every heart every feeling of tenderness for them—as if it would make us forget that there was any point of community between us. Error for error,—I would rather love the folly which adored the brutes, than the cruelty which ill treated them. Yes, I would rather pardon the hideous caprices which fable paints of Pasiphae, than those frightful bull fights of which the art consists in carrying the suffering and the rage of the expiring animal to the highest point, for the amusement of the barbarous spectators.

Division VI. Simple things or individuals—complex things or collections of things.—Among complex things, those should be distinguished which are naturally complex, from those which are so from institution.

A complex thing may either be a collection of simple things equally principals, or a thing which is regarded as principal, united to others which are regarded as accessaries.

A heap of corn is a collection of things equally principal. A field with certain plants and buildings is a collection of things, where some are principals and some accessaries. The bond which unites them is natural. But an inheritance, of which the objects are scattered—a stock in trade—the respective fortunes of two persons who intermarry,—these are examples of complex things, which are connected only by a bond of institution, such as the identity of the proprietor, and the disposition of the law.

Questions to be decided:—In case of dispute, which is the principal thing?—which are the accessaries? In what cases ought the disposition made with respect to the one, to comprehend the others? This depends upon contracts. It would therefore require a reference to this title.

What shall we say of the famous division among the Romanists, of things corporeal and things incorporeal; that is to say, of things which do not exist, which are not things? It is a fiction which only serves to hide and to augment the confusion of ideas. All these incorporeal things are only rights either to the services of men, or of real things: this will be shown in treating of rights.

If a thing interest sufficiently to become the object of a law, it is only as it possesses a certain value. Now this value is susceptible of many modifications, which require to be marked out. Ought these modifications to be treated of under a general title, or should they be reserved for the particular titles of the offences which affect them—as, for example, for that of waste? This is a question which can scarcely be resolved until all parts of the code have been considered.

Everything which exists, exists in a certain quantity; and the quality being given, the value of the thing will be in proportion to that quantity. To express these quantities, measures are required. These measures express either the quantity of the matter, or the space which it occupies: they are weights, or measures of extent. Hence we see that definitions of the measures of every kind, and the regulation of their proportions, ought to form a general title, and is necessary to complete a code of laws.

There is difficulty not only in distinguishing species: there is sometimes much difficulty in distinguishing individuals.

Individuation—(if we may coin this term.) This is one of the first cases which should occupy a legislator under each particular title which demands it. A house is let: but what ought to be comprehended under this term? does it comprehend the tapestry, the locks, the brewing tubs, the cisterns? What is to be understood by a square acre? does it extend without limits into the interior of the earth, and above the surface? &c.

The Roman lawyers, who have talked so much about things, have never arrived at clear ideas upon this subject.

Things, says Justinian, are either out of the patrimony of individuals, or belonging to this patrimony. They are either by divine law, or by human law. Things by divine law are also either sacred, or religious, or holy. Things by human law are either belonging to individuals separately, or belonging to all the community indistinctly; that is to say, private or common.* Here there are distinctions in form. But there is a great show, and little accomplished.

It might be imagined that the legislator was about to give specific names to all the things which composed these classes, but we should be deceived. He has carefully avoided this labour; he has abandoned it to the disputes of the lawyers:—“I, the legislator, know not how to explain my will to you; it is your duty, who must obey me, to divine my meaning!”

What would be said to a master who should explain his orders in so confused and vague a manner to his inferiors; who should speak to them of things in general, without speaking to them of things specific and individual; and who should punish them for not having known how to comprehend what he has not known how to express?

The history of Nebuchadnezzar is a noble apologue for legislators: he ordered the wise men to be slain because they did not divine his dreams. How many makers of laws have done the same, without, like him, being turned out among the beasts.

[* ]The nine following Chapters might have been placed among the Principles of the Civil Code, but as the objects are therein considered in an abstract and scientific manner, I have thought it better to insert them in this part of the work, which is, so to speak, the skeleton of jurisprudence.

[† ]Doctor Fordyce built one which he sent to the Antilles. It was made of pasteboard and paper.

[* ]Inst. lib. ii. tit. 1.