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• Introduction to the Liberty Fund Edition
• Editor’s Note
• Preface to the First Edition
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Lecture I: The Relation Between Law and Public Opinion
• Lecture II: Characteristics of Law-making Opinion In England
• Lecture III: Democracy and Legislation
• Lecture IV: The Three Main Currents of Public Opinion
• I.: The Period of Old Toryism Or Legislative Quiescence (1800–1830) 1
• II.: The Period of Benthamism Or Individualism (1825–1870) 3
• III.: Period of Collectivism (1865–1900) 5
• Lecture V: The Period of Old Toryism Or Legislative Quiescence (1800–1830)
• (a): State of Opinion (1760–1830)
• (b): Absence of Changes In the Law
• (c): Why Considerable Changes Took Place During the Period of Quiescence
• (d): Close of the Period of Quiescence
• Lecture VI: The Period of Benthamism Or Individualism 1
• (a): Benthamite Ideas As to the Reform of the Law
• (b): the Acceptance of Benthamism
• (c): the Trend and Tendency of Benthamite Legislation
• Lecture VII: The Growth of Collectivism
• Tory Philanthropy and the Factory Movement
• Changed Attitude of the Working Classes
• Modification In Economic and Social Beliefs
• Characteristics of Modern Commerce
• Introduction of Household Suffrage, 1868–1884
• Lecture VIII: The Period of Collectivism
• (a): Principles of Collectivism
• (b): Trend of Collectivist Legislation
• Lecture IX: The Debt of Collectivism to Benthamism
• Lecture X: Counter-currents and Cross-currents of Legislative Opinion
• A.: the Course of Legislative Opinion
• B.: the Actual Course of Ecclesiastical Legislation
• Lecture XI: Judicial Legislation
• I.: The Special Characteristics of Judicial Legislation In Relation to Public Opinion
• II.: The Effect of Judge-made Law On Parliamentary Legislation
• Lecture XII: Relation Between Legislative Opinion and General Public Opinion
• I.: As to Analogous Changes of Opinion In Different Spheres and Also In the Lives of Individuals.
• II.: As to the Dependence of Legislative Opinion On the General Tendencies of English Thought.
• Appendix
• Note I.: The Right of Association
• Note II.: The Ecclesiastical Commission
• Note III.: University Tests
• Note IV.: Judge-made Law
• Note V.: Proposed Collectivist Legislation of 1905 *
• Introduction to the Second Edition

Editor’s Note

this edition is based on a 1917 printing of the 1914 second edition. It was compared with the first edition of 1905. I have placed Dicey’s 1914 “Introduction to the Second Edition” at the end of the lectures. This introduction is essentially a summary of developments in the period 1905 to 1914 and is most profitably read after the lectures. In accordance with Liberty Fund practice, a copy editor has modernized Dicey’s punctuation and made small changes to introduce consistency regarding titles. I have kept Dicey’s spellings and notes. A few notes have been added. Translations have been provided for a few passages.

Thanks to research assistants Alison Wrighton, Larissa Perry, Brandon Miller, and Alex Hamilton for their help with this book and to the University of Western Ontario (London, Canada) for paying their salary. Thank you to the Department of Politics at Western and the Research Fund at King’s University College (London, Canada) for their financial support for research in Britain. Thank you also to Richard Cosgrove of the University of Arizona, whose book on Dicey provided the starting point for my work and whose advice saved me a great deal of time in my research in Britain. Thanks to the librarians at the Bodleian Library (Oxford), the British Library (London, Great Britain), the House of Lords Record Office (London, Great Britain), and the D. B. Weldon Library (London, Canada). Thank you to Jeremy Worth for his translation of French passages for this book and to Richard Vernon for his advice on various points. Thank you to my wife, Anne Barnfield, for her help with the preparation of this volume.

I dedicate this book in honor of my father, Harry VandeWetering.