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• A View of the Hard-labour Bill; Being an Abstract of a Pamphlet, Intituled, “draught of a Bill, to Punish By Imprisonment and Hard Labour, Certain Offenders; and to Establish Proper Places For Their Reception:” Interspersed With Observations Relative T
• Panopticon; Or, the Inspection-house: Containing the Idea of a New Principle of Construction Applicable to Any Sort of Establishment, In Which Persons of Any Description Are to Be Kept Under Inspection; and In Particular to Penitentiary-houses,
• Preface.
• Letter I.: Idea of the Inspection Principle.
• Letter II.: Plan For a Penitentiary Inspection-house.
• Letter III.: Extent For a Single Building.
• Letter IV.: The Principle Extended to Uncovered Areas.
• Letter V.: Essential Points of the Plan.
• Letter VI.: Advantages of the Plan.
• Letter VII.: Penitentiary-houses—safe Custody.
• Letter VIII.: Uses—penitentiary-houses—reformation.
• Letter IX.: Penitentiary-houses—economy—contract—plan.
• Letter X.: Choice of Trades Should Be Free.
• Letter XI.: Multiplication of Trades Is Not Necessary.
• Letter XII.: Contractor’s Checks.
• Letter XIII.: Means of Extracting Labour.
• Letter XIV.: Provision For Liberated Persons.
• Letter XV.: Prospect of Saving From This Plan.
• Letter XVI.: Houses of Correction.
• Letter XVII.: Prisons For Safe Custody Merely.
• Letter XVIII.: Manufactories.
• Letter XIX.: Mad-houses.
• Letter XX.: Hospitals.
• Letter XXI.: Schools.
• Postscript, Part I. Containing Further Particulars and Alterations Relative to the Plan of Construction Originally Proposed; Principally Adapted to the Purpose of a Panopticon Penitentiary-house. *
• Section I.: Principal Particulars. Principal Particulars Either Settled Or Altered, Since the First Hasty Design, As Described In Letter II. And Imperfectly Represented In Plate I. See Plate II. †
• Section II.: General View of the Whole Edifice. In a General View of the Whole Building, According to Its Present Form, Three Very Different, Though Connected Masses, May Be Distinguished.
• Section III.: Annular Well. Annular Well, Instead of Stories of Intermediate Annular Area.
• Section IV.: Protracted Partitions Omitted. Protracted Partitions Omitted; Or Rather, Taken Into the Cells.
• Section V.: Cells, Double Instead of Single.
• Section VI.: Dead-part.
• Section VII.: Chapel. Chapel Introduced. *
• Section VIII.: Inspection-galleries and Lodge.
• Section IX.: Of the Communications In General.
• Section X.: Communications. Prisoners’ Staircases.
• Section XI.: Communications—inspectors Staircases.
• Section XII.: Staircase For Chapel Visitors, and For the Officers’ Apartments.
• Section XIII.: Cell-galleries.
• Section XIV.: Doors.
• Section XV.: Diametrical Passage.
• Section XVI.: Communications—exit Into the Yards.
• Section XVII.: Exterior Annular Well. ‡
• Section XVIII.: Windows Reaching Low, and Glazed; Instead of High Up, and Open.
• Section XIX.: Materials. Arched Work—much Iron—plaster Floors.
• Section XX.: Outlets, Including Airing-yards.
• Section XXI.: Approach and Fences.
• Section XXII.: Means of Supplying Water.
• Section XXIII.: Of the Mode of Warming the Building.
• Section XXIV.: Of the Economy Observed In the Construction.
• Postscript—part II. Principles and Plan of Management.
• Section I.: Leading Positions.
• Section II.: Management—in What Hands, and On What Terms.
• Section III.: Of Separation As Between the Sexes.
• Section IV.: Of Separation Into Companies and Classes.
• Section V.: Employment.
• Section VI.: Diet.
• Section VII.: Clothing.
• Section VIII.: Bedding.
• Section IX.: Health and Cleanliness.
• Section X.: Of Airing and Exercise.
• Section XI.: Schooling and Sunday Employment.
• Section XII.: Of Ventilation, Shading, and Cooling.
• Section XIII.: Distribution of Time.
• Section XIV.: Of Punishments.
• Section XV.: Mode of Guarding On the Outside.
• Section XVI.: Provision For Liberated Prisoners.
• The Following Note Respecting This Work Was Given By Bentham to Dr. Bowring, 24 Th January 1821.
• Panopticon Versus New South Wales: Or, the Panopticon Penitentiary System, and the Penal Colonization System, Compared.
• A Plea For the Constitution: Shewing the Enormities Committed, to the Oppression of British Subjects, Innocent As Well As Guilty;
• Preface.
• Section I.: Subject Matter—object—plan.
• Section II.: Power of Legislation—its Necessity In New South Wales.
• Section III: Legislation—how Far Lawful In New South Wales.
• Section IV.: American, &c. Legislation No Precedent For New South Wales.
• Section V.: Even In America, the Crown Had No Right to Legislate Without Parliament.
• Section VI.: Nullity of Legislation In New South Wales, For Want of an Assembly to Consent.
• Section VII.: Nullity of Governor’s Ordinances. For Want of a Court to Try Offences Against Them.
• Section VIII.: King’s Law-servants Not Infallible.
• Section IX.: Nullity of New South Wales Legislation, Proved By the Granada Case.
• Section X.: Governor’s Illegal Ordinances Exemplified.
• Section XI.: Governor’s Illegal Ordinances Exemplified.
• Section XII.: Expirees Forcibly Detained.
• Section XIII.: Expirees, During Detention, Kept In a State of Bondage.
• Section XIV.: Statutes Transgressed By the Legislation and Government of New South Wales.
• Draught of a Code For the Organization of the Judicial Establishment In France: With Critical Observations On the Draught Proposed By the National Assembly Committee, In the Form of a Perpetual Commentary.
• Bentham’s Draught For the Organization of Judicial Establishments, Compared With That of the National Assembly, With a Commentary On the Same.
• Emancipate Your Colonies! Addressed to the National Convention of France, Anno 1793.
• Jeremy Bentham to His Fellow-citizens of France, On Houses of Peers and Senates.
• Papers Relative to Codification and Public Instruction: Including Correspondence With the Russian Emperor, and Divers Constituted Authorities In the American United States.
• Part I.—: On Codification.
• No. I.: To the President of the United States of America.
• No. II.: James Madison, Then President of the Congress of the American United States, to Jeremy Bentham, London.
• No. III.: Albert Gallatin, Minister Plenipotentiary From the American United States to the Court of London, to Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania, Introducing a Letter From Jeremy Bentham to the Said Governor.
• No. IV.: Jeremy Bentham, London, to Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania.
• No. V.: Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania, to David Meade Randolph, Esq. Williamsburgh, Virginia, On the Subject of the Above Letter of Jeremy Bentham.
• No. VI.: Extract From a Printed Paper, Signed Simon Snyder, Dated Harrisburg, December 5 Th 1816, James Peacock, Printer, Intituled “ Governor’s Message to the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, ” Containing Seve
• No. VII.: Circular. — to the Governor of the State of
• No. VIII.: Jeremy Bentham, an Englishman, to the Citizens of the Several American United States.
• No. IX.: Jeremy Bentham to James Madison, Late President of the American United States.
• No. X.: Jeremy Bentham to the Emperor of All the Russias.
• No. XI.: Alexander I. Emperor of All the Russias, to Jeremy Bentham, London—written With His Imperial Majesty’s Own Hand, In Answer to the Above, [no. X.]
• No. XII.: Jeremy Bentham to the Emperor of All the Russias.
• No. XIII.: Prince Adam Czartoriski, of Poland, to Jeremy Bentham, London. *
• No. XIV.: Jeremy Bentham, London, to Prince Adam Czartoriski of Poland.
• Part II.: Public Instruction.
• No. I.: ( Circular. )— Letter From His Excellency Wilson Cary Nicholas, Governor of Virginia, On the Subject of Public Instruction.—addressed (the Copy of Which This Is a Transcript) to His Excellency John Quincy Adams, Minister Plenipotentiary From the U
• No. II.: ( Circular. )— to the Governor of the State of
• No. III.
• No. IV. Notice Concerning Chrestomathia, By the Paris Lancasterian Instruction Society. Report of the British and Foreign School Society to the General Meeting, Dec. 12, 1816.—EXTRACT.
• Codification Proposal, Addressed By Jeremy Bentham to All Nations Professing Liberal Opinions; Or Idea of a Proposed All-comprehensive Body of Law, With an Accompaniment of Reasons, Applying All Along to the Several Proposed Arrangements:
• Advertisement.
• Part I.—ARGUMENTS.: Positions, With Reasons For Proofs.
• Section 1.: In Every Political State, the Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That It Be Provided With an All-comprehensive Body of Law. All-comprehensiveness, Practicable, and Indispensable.
• Section 2.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That Such Body of Law Be Throughout Accompanied By Its Rationale: an Indication of the Reasons On Which the Several Arrangements Contained In It Are Grounded. Rationale, Though Unex
• Section 3.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That Those Reasons Be Such, Throughout, As Shall Show the Conduciveness of the Several Arrangements to the All-comprehensive and Only Defensible End Thus Expressed. Rationale, Indicat
• Section 4.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That, of This Rationale, the Several Parts Be Placed In the Most Immediate Contact With the Several Arrangements to Which They Respectively Apply. Rationale, Interwoven, Not Detached.
• Section 5.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That For the Function Exercised By the Drawing of the Original Draught of Such a Code, the Competitors He As Many As, Without Reward At the Public Expense, Can Be Obtained: and So, For T
• Section 6.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that, For the Drawing of Any Such Draught, No Reward At the Public Expense Be Given. At Additional Expense, Reward None.
• Section 7.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that Every Draught, So Given In, Be, From Beginning to End, If Possible, the Work of a Single Hand. Hands Not More Than One.
• Section 8.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that Such Original Draught, Being the Work of a Single Hand, Be Known to Be So. Hand, Known to Be But One.
• Section 9.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That the Work, Being the Work of a Single Hand, and Known to Be So, It Be Known Whose the Hand Is. Hand, Known Whose It Is.
• Section 10.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That, For the Drawing of the Original Draught, All Foreigners Be Admitted Into the Competition: and That, In So Far As Applicable, Unless It Be In All Particulars Taken Together Decid
• Section 11.: On the Part of an Individual, Proposing Himself As Draughtsman For the Original Draught of a Code of Laws, Willingness Or Unwillingness to Interweave In His Draught a Rationale As Above, Is the Most Conclusive Preliminary Test, and That
• Section 12.: On the Part of a Ruler, Willingness Or Unwillingness to See Established an All-comprehensive Code, With Its Rationale As Above, and to Receive Original Draughts From All Hands, Are Among the Most Conclusive Tests of Appropriate Aptitude,
• Part II.—TESTIMONIALS.
• I. England
• II. Geneva
• III.: Spain.
• IV.: Portugal.
• V.: Italy.
• VI.: France.
• VII.: Anglo-american United States.
• VIII.: Greece.
• IX.: South America.

Section 1.

In every Political State, the greatest happiness of the greatest number requires, that it be provided with an all-comprehensive body of law. All-comprehensiveness, practicable, and indispensable.

In the political state in question, whatsoever be the effect, which, in pursuance of any regard, entertained, or professed to be entertained, for the greatest happiness of the greatest number, it has been endeavoured to produce, by means of any expression given to the will of any person or persons exercising any of the powers of government,—only in so far as that will has been made known to the individual on whose conduct the production of that effect in each individual instance depends, can existence be given to such effect. If, in the instance of any one such effect, the notification, as above, of the correspondent will, is necessary to the existence of the effect, so is it in the instance of every other such effect. If, in this respect, there be any difference,—by him by whom it is discovered let it be declared.

This is what no man will attempt. Yet are there but too many men, to whom the idea of any such all-comprehensiveness, on the part of the rule of action, is an object of aversion and even abhorrence.

Who are they? A set of corruptionists, and a correspondent set of dupes.

1. First as to corruptionists.

In proportion as, in the whole field of law, a covering composed of real law is wanting,—room is left for different sets of men, to set up, each of them, in the character of law, this or that article of purely fictitious law, framed by them respectively on each occasion, in a shape adapted to whatever particular and sinister purposes they have, on that occasion, set themselves in pursuit of. There are two distinguishable classes of men, to whose sinister purposes every such void space in the body of the law is subservient. One is, the lawyer class: the other is the class of party men in general; and in particular, party leaders. Were any such all-comprehensive code in existence, and executed as it ought to be and might be, seldom would there be any such question as a question of law: never any other question of law than a question concerning the import of this or that portion of the existing text of the really existing law. In the case of the lawyer class, the need which a man has of void spaces in the body of the law, applies to the whole field of law, and every part of it. In the case of the party man, it is to the constitutional branch of the law that the convenience afforded by those void spaces to his purpose more particularly applies. Wherever real law is silent, the course he takes is this:—He sets up an article of imaginary law framed by him for the purpose, and by loud and confident assertion, supported by such analogical arguments as he can contrive to muster up, endeavours to produce, in the minds of his hearers or readers, the belief of a conviction on his part, that this sham law of his own fabricating is so much real law. If he be of the party in power, it is most commonly for the defence of his own party that the pretended law is fabricated: if he be of the party out of power, it is most commonly for the attack of the party in power that the fabrication has place.

Behold, then, in the above two classes of men, the corruptionists—the knaves. To their sinister interest it is, or is believed to be, conducive, that the rule of action should be kept in the completest state of uncertainty and confusion possible.

The dupes are those on whose minds the knaves have succeeded in producing, in relation to this matter, a persuasion which in their own minds has no existence. This is, that the composition of a code thus comprehensive is impossible. Of any attempt to prove the inutility of it, the absurdity would be too palpable. Remains, then, this notion of the pretended impossibility as the sole resource.

The strength of the argument lying in the ignorance and weakness of those to whom it is addressed, no direct mode of combating it with effect does the nature of the case admit of, except by the substituting appropriate knowledge and strength of mind to that ignorance and that weakness.

This not being within the reasonable hope of any man, the only sort of argument that presents any chance or prospect of success is this:—Let the endeavour to produce a code of this all-comprehensive description be employed: if it fails altogether, you are but as you were: so far as it succceds, so far at least you will be the better for it: instead of a counterfeit arrangement, fabricated on the occasion by this or that influential hand for its own particular and sinister purpose, you have a real arrangement; an arrangement, the knowledge of which, whatsoever has been its purpose, has been given, or at any rate may have been given, and given in time, to those whose lot it had taken upon itself to dispose of:—the knowledge of it, and thereby so far the power to conform to it. To give to you, whoever you are, this means of safety, is the endeavour of every public man whose end in view is the greatest happiness of the greatest number. To withhold it from you, is the endeavour of the corruptionist in every one of his shapes: to keep everything that is dear to you in the state of the most perfect insecurity possible. Why? Because in that insecurity he beholds an efficient cause of his own power: by every increase you get to your security, that power of his is lessened. It is because he is so fully conscious of the possibility of such a work, and accordingly so fearful of seeing it executed, that he is so earnest with you to persuade you to regard the accomplishment of it as impossible: to regard success as impossible, and thence every proposal for the endeavour as absurd. Supposing it really impossible, he would be without motive for taking so much pains to make you regard it as such.

The possibility—is it proved—the impossibility disproved—by the fact? Where the fact has place, are men in general satisfied or dissatisfied with it? Ask a citizen of the United States, whether it would be agreeable to him to see his constitutional code done away, and, throughout the whole field of law, party men and lawyers left at liberty to vociferate, upon each occasion, the law is so and so, the law is so and so:—to vociferate thus—as it would be left for them to do, and as they would not fail to do, when the truth is, that, by the very supposition, there is no such thing as any law about the matter. Ask him where the impossibility is, of doing that which, by that same constitutional code, has actually been done.

Well then—if, in the giving a covering of this sort to the whole field of constitutional law, there has been nothing impossible, why should there be in giving a like covering to any other part of the field of law? to the field of distributive, or, as the phrase is, civil law—to the field of penal law—to the field of judicial procedure?

Ask the Spaniard the like question.

Ask either of them—ask even the Englishman—seeing that so many parts of the field of law are actually covered by real law—what is there that should hinder the other parts, any or all of them, from receiving a like covering?

In every other case, the more strenuous a man’s endeavour is to render his work complete, is not the probability of its being rendered so the greater? Is it that the more studiously a man abstains from adding anything to it, the nearer to completeness it will be? Does not a more complete come nearer to an all-comprehensive than a less complete work does?

As to the mode of securing this same property of all-comprehensiveness to the several operations that required to be performed on the several parts of the field of law in the penning of a code, some instructions for this purpose may be seen in Part the Second of the work intituled Chrestomathia.*

In a word, be the occasion what it may, if in specie, the language cannot always be all-comprehensive—say rather all-expressive—yet such in genere it may always be: and, as every individual is contained within its species, so is every species within its genus.

[* ]Take a man who has hitherto belonged to the class of dupes: if, in his body, he has a mind capable of reflection, and will allow himself a little time for making use of it, the following considerations may serve him for a clue. By words such as state of things, event, things immoveable, things moveable, action, forbearance, misdeed, obligation, command, prohibition, permission, condition, right, punishment, reward—by these, with the addition of a few others, not only has the whole field of legislation, but the whole field of possible thought and action, been covered. Well then, if by these, why not by others of less extensive imports?—of imports included in the imports of these several words respectively? by others of this or that less extensive import, according as the occasion serves?