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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to Lord Sidmouth. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [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. 10.

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

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Bentham to Lord Sidmouth.

“Mr Bentham to the President of the United States—Postscript to Lord Sidmouth.

“Queen’s Square Place,
Westminster, 20th June, 1812.

“My Lord,—

Your lordship’s kindness having impounded the brouillen of my letter to the President of the United States,* as it were, in a state of nakedness,—apprehensive of the misconceptions to which, when viewed through that medium, the nature of the offer thus submitted by me to your lordship, may have been left open, by a conversation carried on, on my side, with the greatest rapidity which it was in my power to give to it,—I take the liberty of troubling your lordship with a few words of explanation, requesting that this letter may be added to that other, and considered as forming a sort of postscript to it.

“1. What is there proposed to the President, as ready to be begun, or rather to be continued, is no less than what is there termed, for shortness, a Pannomion, a complete body of law, commensurate in its extent with the whole field of law.

“What I should propose to your lordship, to call into existence for the purpose of the department over which your lordship now presides, is nothing more than a Penal Code: a proposed Penal Code in terminis, with a perpetual Commentary of Reasons (as per sample in the French book, Mr Dumont’s) and Observations, bringing to view all along, and under each head, the imperfections, or supposed imperfections, of the existing rule of action in its present state.

“That you should pledge yourself for any such endeavour as that of carrying into effect so much as any the smallest part of it when produced, is more than I expect, or—But why do I say expect? It is more than, if it depended upon myself, I would suffer to be done.

“That in some point of view or other, some sort and degree of approbation, as produced by the opinion already before the public, would, in and by any encouragement given to the continuance of it, be unavoidably, if not expressed, implied, is more than I can take upon myself to speak of as questionable. But to that general sort of approbation there are not any imaginable qualifications, limitations, reserves, modifications, or exceptions, that would not, on my part, find a ready acquiescence; and when the thing is finished, if from the beginning of it to the end, there should not be a single proposition in it that you saw reason to approve of, you would be just as free to say so, as if you had not contributed in any way to the production of it.

“In my own country, and in my own lifetime, the utmost I could expect of any body of proposed law drawn up by myself, is, that it should be received, and employed, and made use of in the character of a subject of comparison—a subject or object of comparison, capable, on occasion, of being referred to—referred to for good provision or for bad provision, for good argument or for bad argument, for approbation or for censure. The more insignificant the author, the more entire the freedom with which the work, in every part of it, might be, and would be canvassed. Here would be a something which would extend over the whole field of the subject, and which, good or bad, would, at any rate, have an existence and a shape.

“As to the existing Penal Code—but there is no existing Penal Code—(those fragments, those deplorably scanty, as well as frequently exuberant and throughout inadequately expressed—those perpetually incommensurable, never-confronted and ever-inconsistent fragments which are in the state of statute law excepted) existence cannot be predicated of it. Be it law, be it what else it may, that discourse which has no determinate set of words belonging to it, has no existence.

“Excuse my freedom; but I would beg of your lordship to consider whether this be not that sort of thing from which, in your lordship’s situation, a public man has something to gain—something, I mean, of course, in the shape of reputation, and nothing at all to lose.

“Without expense to the public—without anything which, from any human being, can receive any such name as that of a job, on a subject of such importance, a work of such difficulty, brought out by the labour of the only individual in the country who has ever applied himself to the subject;—whatever there be in it that comes to be well spoken of—supposing anything in it well spoken of—Mæcenas, with his superior discernment and liberal views, gets, of course, the credit of: whatever there is in it that is ill-spoken of, Mæcenas washes his hands of it.

“Of one thing, I think, I can venture to give your lordship pretty full assurance, viz., that from opposition, anything done in this view, and, in particular, if coming from your lordship, would experience not merely a cold acquiescence, but upon occasion, openly and pretty extensively declared approbation and support; and I am even content to put the matter upon this issue, viz., that upon this point a sufficient assurance shall previously have been obtained. The grounds of this persuasion would require by far too many words for your lordship to be troubled with in the shape of black and white. But any time I am ready to submit them in the fullest detail, and with that confidential frankness which is so well suited to the subject, and of which, at the very first interview, your lordship’s kindness set so encouraging an example.

“Since the days of Lord Bacon, the sort of offer I am making to your lordship is what has never, from that time to this, been made to any public man. This is as plain a truth as it is a known one; and in this, if there be anything of flattery at the bottom of it, it is a sort of flattery which I am not ashamed to give, and which your lordship, I presume, will not be ashamed to receive.

“Of the offer made in Lord Bacon’s time, that great man, it is true, was the maker, not the receiver,—the receiver being an unwise king, and not the less unwise for the neglect he charged himself with in not profiting by it.

“When the object thus solicited for is neither more nor less than the faculty of taking up, for the remainder of life, a course of hard labour, without an atom of what is commonly understood under the name of reward,—in a word, without any reward but what is inherent in the nature of the labour itself, (supposing it to be followed with any effect,) and cannot be separated from it, your lordship, I am inclined to flatter myself, will join with me in the opinion, that the solicitation, should it even be deemed importunate, is not of that sort by which anything of dishonour would be reflected either upon the unofficial man who urges it, or upon the official man who should yield to it.

“What (I say once more) is not necessary, is reward; but what, I cannot but confess is necessary—I mean in my own case—to the execution of the sort of work in question, is encouragement, meaning by encouragement, attention; for the work when executed, assurance of attention, viz. on the part of the public, and to that end, in some shape or other, from office.

“What your lordship has to consider is—whether it does or does not promise to be of advantage to the country, and thence to mankind at large, that a work of the sort in question, on the subject in question, by the hand in question, should be executed? Should your determination be in the affirmative, it will then be time enough to consider, in what shape the encouragement may most suitably be administered—I mean the assurance of attention afforded. This, however, is not a subject for writing, but for vivâ voce discussion, and on which I should have more to hear than speak—at least would more willingly hear than speak. One other thing, which your lordship may, perhaps, have to consider, is—whether it would be for the advantage of Lord Sidmouth’s fame, that it should go down to posterity, that Lord Sidmouth, having it in his power to cause a work of the sort in question, a sample of which is in the hands of the public, to be brought into existence, and by that same hand, chose that it should not be brought into existence?

“ ‘But all this while, Sir,’ (I think I hear your lordship saying,) ‘if you really have any such strong desire for executing any such work as you speak of, what is there to hinder you?’ My lord, I am perfectly able and willing to explain to your lordship what has hindered me—what does hinder me—and what continues to hinder me. But this is not a subject for black and white.—I have the honour to be,” &c.

In answer to a complaining epistle of Mr Mulford’s, (then more than 83 years old,) Bentham concludes a long letter thus:—

[* ] The letter to the President of the United States on Codification, published in vol. iv. p. 453 of the Works.