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• Scotch Reform; Considered With Reference to the Plan Proposed In the Late Parliament, For the Regulation of the Courts and the Administration of Justice In Scotland: With Illustrations From English Non-reform: In the Course of Which, Divers Imperfectio
• Advertisement.
• Letters to Lord Grenville, On the Proposed Reform In the Administration of Civil Justice In Scotland.
• Letter I.
• Letter II.: Proposed Division of the Court of Session.
• Letter III.: Proposed System of Pleading.
• Letter IV.: Proposed Trial By Jury.
• Letter V.: On the Bill Called Lord Eldon’s.
• Summary View of the Plan of a Judicatory, Under the Name of the Court of Lords’ Delegates, Proposed For the Exercise of Those Judicial Functions, the Adequate Discharge of Which By the Whole House Has, For These Six Or Seven Years, Been Rendered Confe
• The Elements of the Art of Packing, As Applied to Special Juries, Particularly In Cases of Libel Law.
• Advertisement to the First Edition.
• Part I.
• Chapter I.: Occasion of This Work.
• Chapter II.: Juries—their Use As a Check to Judges.
• Chapter III.: The Check How Done Away By Influence.
• Chapter IV.: Special Juries, a Special Engine of Corruption.
• Chapter V.: Jury Unanimity Increases the Corruption.
• Chapter VI.: Purposes to Which Influence On Juries May Be Made Subservient.
• Chapter VII.: Chief Purpose, Crushing the Liberty of the Press.
• Chapter VIII.: The Exchequer Packing Office Suffices.
• Chapter IX.: Instruments For Crushing the Liberty of the Press.
• Chapter X.: Want of Adequate Obsequiousness Morally Impossible.
• Chapter XI.: Such Juries Worse Than None.
• Part II.: State of the Packing System, Anno 1808.
• Chapter I.: Introduction—two Reforming Shrievalties.
• Chapter II.: The Sheriff to the Lord Chief Baron—notices.
• Chapter III.: Lord Chief Baron to Sheriff Sir Richard Phillips—avowries and Defences.
• Chapter IV.: Observations On the Lord Chief Baron’s Defences.
• Chapter V.: Special Jury Corruption—devices By Which It Was Protected.
• Chapter VI.: Learned Advice From the Temple.
• Chapter VII.: Advice From Lincoln’s-inn.
• Chapter VIII.: Maxims Concerning Reform, Deduced From the Above Letter.
• Chapter IX.: Transactions At the Remembrancer’s.
• Part III.: State of the Packing System, Anno 1809.
• Chapter I.: Commons’ Debate, 24 Th April 1809. Packing and Cutting.
• Chapter II.: Double-fee Abuse, Plain and Embroidered.
• Part IV.—: Remedies Proposed. *
• Chapter I.: Humble Proposal For Restoring the Constitution In Regard to Juries.
• Chapter II.: State of Jury Package In Scotland.
• Chapter III.: Humble Proposal For Restoring the Authority of Parliament.
• “swear Not At All:” Containing an Exposure of the Needlessness and Mischievousness, As Well As Anti-christianity of the Ceremony of an Oath: a View of the Parliamentary Recognition of Its Needlessness, Implied In the Practice of Both Houses; a
• Advertisement.
• Editor’s Note
• Swear Not At All. Mat. V. 34.
• Section 1.: Oath. Incongruity of the Assumption, On Which Its Supposed Beneficial Efficiency Is Grounded.
• Section 2.: Mischievousness of This Instrument Considered In a General Point of View.
• Section 3.: Its Inefficiency In the Character of a Security Against Deceptious Incorrectness and Incompleteness In Evidence.
• Section 4.: Recognition of Its Inutility By Lords and Commons.
• Section 5.: Mischiefs —1. Contributing to the Mendacity-licence Granted By Judges.
• Section 6.: Mischief 2— Weakening In Various Ways the Efficiency of the Laws.
• Section 7.: Mischief 3— Bewildering and Enslaving the Consciences of Jurymen.
• Section 8.: Mischief 4— Giving Aid and Force to the Enterprises of Malefactors.
• Section 9.: Mischief 5— Furnishing Pretence For Misrule By Abuse of Prerogative.
• Section 10.: Misrule, How to Perpetuate—coronation Oaths Amended.
• Section 11.: Mischief 6— Corrupting the National Morals and Understanding—oxford University Oaths.
• Section 12.: Mischief 6 Continued. —ii. Cambridge Oaths.
• Section 13.: Practice of Receiving Judicial Oaths, Its Repugnancy to the Precepts of Jesus.
• Section 14.: Succedanea—true Securities Substitutible to This False One.
• Section 15.: Cause and Origin of the Practice In Regard to Oaths.
• Appendix.
• Truth Versus Ashhurst; Or, Law As It Is, Contrasted With What It Is Said to Be.
• The King Against Edmonds and Others: Set Down For Trial, At Warwick, On the 29 Th of March 1820.
• The King Against Sir Charles Wolseley, Baronet, and Joseph Harrison, Schoolmaster, Set Down For Trial, At Chester, On the 4 Th of April 1820.
• Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized: As Shown In the Several Papers Comprised In This Volume.
• Paper I.—
• Paper II.—: Introductory View, &c.
• Paper III.—: Extract From the Proposed Constitutional Code; Entitled, Official Aptitude Maximized—expense Minimized. By Jeremy Bentham, Esq. Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn.
• Paper IV.—: Supplement to the Above Extract.
• Paper V.—: Defence of Economy Against the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.
• Paper VI.—: Defence of Economy Against the Right Honourable George Rose.
• Paper VII.: Observations On Mr. Secretary Peel’s House of Commons Speech, 21 St March 1825, Introducing His Police Magistrates’ Salary Raising Bill, ( Date of Order For Printing, 24 Th March 1825.)
• Paper VIII.: Indications Respecting Lord Eldon, Including History of the Pending Judges’-salary-raising Measure.
• Paper IX.—: On the Militia.
• Paper X.: On Public Account Keeping.
• Paper XI.: Constitutional Code—table of Contents As Shown By Titles of Chapter and Sections.
• Commentary On Mr. Humphreys’ Real Property Code, By Jeremy Bentham. From the Westminster Review, No. XII., For October 1826.
• *∗* the Following Note Was Prefixed to the Article By the Editor of the Westminster Review: —
• Commentary On Humphreys’ Real Property Code.
• I.: Deed of Sale.
• II.: Deed of Mortgage. 1
• III.: Marriage Settlement Deed.
• Outline of a Plan of a General Register of Real Property: Contained In a Communication to the Commissioners Appointed Under Letters Patent, of Date the 6 Th June 1828, to Inquire Into the Law of England Respecting Real Property, and First Printed I
• Justice and Codification Petitions: Being Forms Proposed For Signature By All Persons Whose Desire It Is to See Justice No Longer Sold, Delayed, Or Denied: and to Obtain a Possibility of That Knowledge of the Law, In Proportion to the Want of Which T
• Justice and Codification Petitions.
• Advertisement.
• Preliminary Explanations Necessary to Be First Read.
• Petition For Justice.
• Abridged Petition For Justice.
• More Abridged Petition For Justice.
• Supplement, Which May Be Added Or Not to Any One of the Three Or Any Other Proposed Petition.
• Petition For Codification.
• Lord Brougham Displayed: Including I. Boa Constrictor, Alias Helluo Curiarum; II. Observations On the Bankruptcy Court Bill, Now Ripened Into an Act; III. Extracts From Proposed Constitutional Code.

Section 2.

Mischievousness of this instrument considered in a general point of view.

From mere incongruity, in this case as in any other, any inference that could be drewn might not, when considered in a practical point of view, be regarded as having much claim to attention: from mere incongruity, that is, if so it were, that, of the institution in question, the effects, taken all together, presented a balance on the side of utility.

True: but, on inquiry, what (it is supposed) will appear clear beyond dispute, is—that of its influence, the real, not to say the whole, amount is on the contrary side: to the here supposed or any other good purpose, its inefficiency complete; to bad purposes, in no small variety, as well as number and extent, its efficiency indubitable.

Of its inefficiency, viz. to any useful purpose,—and in particular to the purpose of securing fulfilment to any useful obligation to which in that view it is attached,—a view will be given presently.

Of the infinite variety of applications of which this instrument of government is susceptible, the only one which in a direct way bears upon the present purpose, is that which regards the subject of evidence. In the list of the mischiefs of which the use of it will be found productive, it is to those which result from the application made of it to this particular purpose, that the first place must accordingly be acknowledged to be due. But, the instrument being in all cases one and the same,—the use of it not being, in this particular application of it, maintainable, without being maintained in every other application that, in this country at least, continues to be made of it,—hence it is, that, in the account of its mischievous effects, to those which result from this particular application of it in its character of an assertory—testimonial—oath, must be added those which result from its application in the character of a promissory oath at large.

Before the consideration of its mischievous effects in this or that particular shape is entered upon, notice is due to an observation, which on this occasion will naturally enough be apt to present itself, as in practice it has been in use to present itself, in the character of an answer;—an answer, clearing the instrument in a great degree, if not altogether, of all imputation on this score. When, in the case of this or that application of it, pure mischief is beyond dispute seen to follow from the observance of it, the oath, it is said, is in this case void: absolutely null and void. In form and appearance it is an oath; but, not having the binding force of an oath, it has not the substance. This being the case, the conclusion is—that, upon the true and genuine instrument, whatsoever mischiefs may be the result of the use made of any such spurious instrument, ought not to be charged.

The oath is void!—The expression is familiar enough, but what meaning is there at the bottom of it? The oath, this particular oath, is void; i. e. is not really binding upon the Almighty, whom it undertakes to bind? Is this what is meant? If so, the truth of this observation must be admitted to be above dispute: for by what human instrument, under this or any other name, can omnipotence be bound? But, in regard to mischievous effects, be they what they may, it leaves the case where it found it.

By man—by the men upon whose agency it may come to have a bearing,—by them will it or will it not be considered—by them, let its effects have been in ever so high a degree mischievous, has it not been considered—as binding upon them? The oath that Jephthah took, was it or was it not by Jephthah considered as binding upon Jephthah: The oath that Herod took, was it or was it not by Herod considered as binding upon Herod? The oath which George took, was it or was it not considered by George as binding upon George? Such are the questions that call for answer, when, whether in speaking of it, any such words as null or void be employed or not employed in speaking of it, its effects, good and bad together, experienced and probable, come to be weighed.

“The oath,” says the casuist,—“the oath which Herod took—was a void oath:”—What, in the mouth of the casuist, is the meaning of this phrase? Either this or nothing, viz. that, in the situation of that tyrant, the casuist, had it happened to him to have taken such an oath, would not have considered himself as bound by it. May be so: but the charger,—the fatal charger,—was it the less cruelly stained by innocent blood?

“Taken in the sense in which George is supposed, or pretended to have understood it, the oath which he took would,” says the casuist, “have been a void oath.” Be it so. But four millions of his own subjects, in the breast of each of whom was inclosed a soul not less precious than his own, a conscience not less entitled to consideration than his own—four millions of his own countrymen, with their posterity to the end of time—were they the less peremptorily treated in the character of an everlastingly degraded cast, composed of everlastingly dangerous adversaries? Were the hands of the sovereign less inexorably employed, in sowing the seeds of rebellion broad cast, and sharpening the axe for heads, more than could find room in many a thousand chargers?

Besides the irrelevancy of it, as above shown,—at the bottom of every observation, for the expression of which any such adjective as null or void, any such substantive as nullity, is employed, an inconsistency, an irremoveable inconsistency will be found. From the ceremony, and that alone, is the binding force, whatever it be, that is supposed to attach on the case, derived; from the ceremony and nothing else:—and the ceremony, beneficial in any degree—pernicious in any degree in its application—the ceremony, which, except the application, is all there is in the case, is it not in every case the same?