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• Errata—vol. VIII.
• Chrestomathia: Being a Collection of Papers, Explanatory of the Design of an Institution, Proposed to Be Set On Foot Under the Name of the Chrestomathic Day School, Or Chrestomathic School, For the Extension of the New System of Instruction to the High
• Introduction By the Editor.
• First Preface to the First Edition.
• Second Preface to the First Edition.
• Chrestomathic (a) Instruction Tables. Table I.
• Chrestomathic Instruction Tables. Table II.
• Appendix. No. I.
• Appendix.—no. II.
• Appendix.—no. III.
• Appendix.—no. IV.: Essay On Nomenclature and Classification. *
• Appendix.—no. V.: Sources of Motion.
• Appendix.—no. VI.
• Appendix.—no. VII.
• Appendix.—no. VIII.
• Appendix No. IX.
• A Fragment On Ontology; Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Note By the Editor.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Classification of Entities.
• Chapter II.: Fictitious Entities Classified.
• Essay On Logic: Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Note By the Editor.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Logic—what ?
• Chapter II.: Logic, Its Characteristics.
• Chapter III.: Præcognita: Or, Preliminary and General Indications Concerning Logic, According to the Aristotelians.
• Chapter IV.: Of Aristotle’s Predicaments and Postpredicaments.
• Chapter V. *: Mode of Discussion.
• Chapter VI.: Relation of Logic to the Business of Human Life In General, and Therein to Arts and Sciences, I. E. to Disciplines.
• Chapter VII.: Clearness In Discourse, How to Produce It? and Hence of Exposition.
• Chapter VIII.: Of Division.
• Chapter IX.: Of Methodization, Otherwise Termed Arrangement. † ‡
• Chapter X.: Of the Art of Invention.
• Appendix.—a.: Phenomena of the Human Mind.
• Appendix B. Division of Art and Science. †
• Essay On Language; Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Note By the Editor.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Modes Or Forms of Which Discourse Or Language Has Been Found Susceptible, Viz. Audible, Visible, and Their Respective Substitutes.
• Chapter II.: Uses of Language.
• Chapter III.: Operations Which, In the Character of an Art, Are Performable In Relation to Discourse, Or Language In General.
• Chapter IV.: Properties Desirable In a Language.
• Chapter V.: Of Improvement Considered As Applicable to Language, Or the Means By Which, In So Far As the Particular Language Employed By an Individual Admits of the Possession of Them, the Properties Desirable In Language May, On Each Occasion, Be Secured
• Chapter VI.: Analytical View of the Matter of Thought and Internal Action; Correspondent View of the Matter of Language.
• Fragments On Universal Grammar; Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Definitions.
• Chapter II.: Uses of Universal Grammar.
• Chapter III.: Of the Parts of Speech.
• Chapter IV.: Of the Noun-substantive.
• Chapter V.: Of the Adjective.
• Chapter VI.: Of Pronouns. *
• Chapter VII.: Of Verbs.
• Chapter VIII.: Of Government and Concord.
• Chapter IX.: Of Prepositions, Adverbs, and Conjunctions.
• Chapter X.: Of Interjections.
• Tracts On Poor Laws and Pauper Management.
• Note By the Editor On the Tracts On Poor Laws.
• Situation and Relief of the Poor.
• Observations On the Pauper Population Table Hereunto Annexed.
• Outline of the Non-adult Value Table.
• Outline of a Work Entitled Pauper Management Improved.
• Book I.: Political Arrangements.
• Book II.: Plan of Management.
• Book III.: Collateral Benefits.
• Book IV.: Pauper Comforts.
• Observations On the Poor Bill. Introduced By the Rt. Hon. William Pitt (feb, 1797). : Chapter I. Introduction
• Chapter II.: 1. Under-ability, Or Supplemental-wages Clause.
• Chapter III.: 2. Family-relief, Or Extra-children Clause.
• Chapter IV.: 3. Cow-money Clause.
• Chapter V.: 4. Relief-extension, Or Opulence-relief Clause.
• Chapter VI.: 5. Apprenticeship Clause.
• Three Tracts Relative to Spanish and Portuguese Affairs; With a Continual Eye to English Ones.
• Advertisement For Tract the First and Second; of This Second * Publication, Namely, On the Then Proposed Spanish House of Lords. ( Anno 1820.)
• Tract, No. I.: Letter to the Spanish Nation On a Then ( Anno 1820) Proposed House of Lords.
• Advertisement to Tract the Second.
• Tract, No. II.: Observations On Judge Advocate Hermosa’s Panegyric On Judicial Delays; On the Occasion of the Impunity As Yet Given By Him to the Loyal Authors of the Cadiz Massacre, a Counterpart to the Manchester Massacre; Explaining, Moreover, the Effe
• Advertisement to Tract the Third.
• Tract, No. III.: Letter to the Portuguese Nation, On Antiquated Constitutions; On the Spanish Constitution Considered As a Whole, and On Certain Defects Observable In It; In Particular, the Immutability-enacting, Or Infallibility-assuming, the Non-re-elig
• Letters to Count Toreno, On the Proposed Penal Code, Delivered In By the Legislation Committee of the Spanish Cortes, April 25th, 1821.
• Advertisement.
• Letter I.
• Letter II.: On the Course Taken By the Legislative Committee, to Prevent, Otherwise Than By Punishment Eo Nomine, the Free Examination of Their Proposed Penal Code.
• Letter III.
• Letter IV.
• Letter V.
• Letter VI.
• Letter VII.
• Supplemental Advertisement.
• Securities Against Misrule, Adapted to a Mahommedan State, and Prepared With Particular Reference to Tripoli In Barbary.
• Note By the Editor.
• Chapter I.: Preliminary Explanations.
• Chapter II.: Public Opinion the Sole Remedy—parallel Between the Public-opinion Tribunal and the Official Judicatories.
• Chapter III.: Notification and Publication In Reference to Securities.
• Chap. IV.: The Securities In Detail.
• Part I.: Securities In Favour of the Nation Considered In the Aggregate.
• Part II.: Securities In Favour of Individuals.
• Chapter V.: Hopes of Success For Any Project Having Such Securities For Its End.

INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR.

Mr Bentham was one of the first to recognise the extraordinary improvement in the method of instruction developed by Mr Lancaster and modified and extended by Dr Bell. The account of the results attending its application to the acquisition of language, given by several eminent teachers from their own actual trial of it, and more especially the statements of Dr Russel, then Head-master of the Charter-house School, and of Mr Pillans and Mr Gray, masters of the High School of Edinburgh, (Appendix No. 2. and 3. pp. 59 and 61)—made a strong impression on Mr Bentham’s mind. If it were true, as stated by Dr Russel, that since he had introduced into the Charter-house School books prepared on the simple principle of the Madras System, no boy had ever passed a sentence of which he was ignorant, nor been flogged on the ground of his learning; if it were true, as stated by Mr Gray, that since he had introduced this system into his school, his whole class had gained a more extensive knowledge of the Latin language than he had ever known on any former occasion; that not a single boy had failed; that it had enabled him entirely to abolish corporal punishment; that it had animated his whole school with one spirit, making them all advance in the intellectual career with the like ardour, and though not with equal success, without a single failure, and that Mr Lancaster had put into his hands an instrument which had enabled him to realize his fondest visions in his most sanguine mood;* —if such results were obtained by the application of this instrument to the acquisition of Latin and Greek, what, said Mr Bentham, may not be expected from its application to the whole field of knowledge? Are there not several branches to which it might be applied with still greater advantage than to language; and is there one which does not afford the promise of at least equal success?

Mr Bentham thought that these questions must be answered in the affirmative, and the great interest which he naturally took in this subject, was strengthened by the desire expressed by some friends of his, among whom were several statesmen and men of wealth, that the experiment should be tried; that a Day School should be opened for the children of the middle and higher classes, in which the principles of the new method should be applied, not only to the teaching of language, but of all the other branches of instruction which are ordinarily included in the curriculum of the highest schools. With his usual ardour, Mr Bentham immediately proposed that the school-house should be erected in his own garden, and that he himself should take a chief part in the superintendance of the school; at the same time his opulent friends agreed to supply the requisite funds.

But these arrangements having been determined on, Mr Bentham now saw that the most difficult part of the undertaking still remained to be accomplished. It was necessary to bring out the principles of the new method more distinctly than had yet been done, and to shape them into so many instruments, each capable of being applied, by ordinary hands, to its specific use: it was equally necessary to review the whole field of knowledge in order to ascertain to what branches of instruction these instruments might be applied with the greatest promise of success; and to what, if any, their application should not be attempted.

The accomplishment of such a project was well calculated to call forth all the energies of Mr Bentham’s mind, and he immediately applied himself to the work. In the meantime, this new school and the devotion of Mr Bentham to the development of the plan of it, became matter of conversation among the philosophers, statesmen, and friends to education of the day. The determination which had been come to, to exclude Theology from the curriculum of instruction, on the ground that its inclusion would be pregnant with exclusion, was also very generally discussed. Alarm was taken at the rumour of this omission; and clerical influence was brought to bear upon the minds of some of the more opulent persons who had encouraged the project, with the ultimate result of causing them to abandon it. However he might regret the loss of support which had been so readily and confidently assured to him, Mr Bentham was not on that account to be turned aside from his purpose. He resolutely persevered in the completion of his part of the compact; and hence although there is no school in the garden of Queen Square Place, yet we have the Chrestomathia.

Whatever other useful purposes may result from the intellectual labour which has been spent upon the production of these papers, it will be found that they are capable of affording special and invaluable assistance to two different classes of persons. First to him who is desirous of developing and strengthening his own intellectual faculties, and of rendering his mind capable of making some progress in the field of original thought and invention, and of extending the domain of science. Such a person should give his days and nights to the study of the instrument described in Appendix, p. 101—128, (and further illustrated in the work on Logic, p. 253 et seq.,) and to actual practice with it. There is no intellectual gymnasium from exercise in which a powerful mind will derive so great an accession of strength.

Secondly, to him who is desirous of improving the character of elementary school-books. In the first number of the Westminster Review, in an elaborate article written nearly twenty years ago, on the Chrestomathia, after an attempt to show, that, for perfect instruction in all the physical sciences, as well as in geometry, algebra, and language, nothing is requisite but elementary books adapted to the new system, the writer asks whether “it be too much to hope, that there are men of science, whose benevolence will induce them to undertake a labour which, humble as it may appear, can be performed only by a philosophical mind which has thoroughly mastered the art and science to be taught. Can any scholar be more nobly employed than in writing such a book on language? or any natural, moral, or political philosopher, than in disclosing to the youthful understanding, in the most lucid order, and in the plainest terms, the profound, which are always the simple, principles of his respective science.”

Since Mr. Bentham wrote, the perception, in the public mind, has become more clear and strong, of the folly of consuming more than three-fourths of the invaluable time appropriated to education, “in scraping together,” as Milton expresses it, “so much miserable Greek and Latin,” by persons of the middle classes, to whom it is of no manner of use; to whose pursuits it bears no kind of relation; who, after all, acquire it so imperfectly, as to derive no pleasure from the future cultivation of it; who invariably neglect it as soon as they are released from the authority of school; and, in the lapse of a few years, allow every trace of it to be obliterated from the memory. Not only is it now generally admitted, that the subject-matter of instruction for these classes should consist of the physical sciences, as well as of language, but it is, moreover, beginning to be perceived, that some advantages would result to the community from opening the book of knowledge to the very lowest of the people; that everything which it is desirable to teach even the masses, is not comprehended in the facts, that there is a devil, a hell, a so-called heaven, a Sunday, and a church, but that there are things worthy of their attention connected with the objects of this present world,—the properties and relations of the air they breathe, the soil they cultivate, the plants they rear, the animals they tend, the materials they work upon in their different trades and manufactures,—the instruments with which they work,—the machinery by which a child is able to produce more than many men, and a single man to generate, combine, control, and direct a physical power superior to that of a thousand horses. There is a growing conviction, that the communication of knowledge of this kind to the working classes would make them better and happier men; and that the possession of such knowledge by these classes would be attended with no injury whatever to any other class. The want of elementary books is therefore becoming every day more urgent; nothing has yet been done to supply them; and yet here, in the Chrestomathia, there is a mine from which any competent hand might dig the material, and fashion the instrument.

The comprehensiveness of the view taken by one and the same mind, of every subject included in such a work as the Chrestomathia, cannot be expected to be equal; nor were all the subjects treated of by Mr Bentham left by him in a state which he regarded as complete. The papers which relate to Geometry and Algebra, in particular, appeared to require revision; and the Editor thought it right to place them for that purpose in the hands of a universally acknowledged master of these sciences. After a careful examination of these manuscripts by this gentleman, they were returned to the Editor, with the following observation:—“That although much has been done in relation to these subjects, on many of the points treated of by Mr Bentham, since the time at which he wrote, or so shortly before it, that he could not know of it; and though his views of first principles were unmatured by the consideration of their highest results, yet the publication of these papers, without alteration or omission, is still desirable, as exhibiting many useful, and several original, trains of thought; and offering many suggestions, of which, though some are imperfect, and others obsolete, the greater number may furnish matter for reflection even to those who have made the exact sciences more their special study than did Mr Bentham.”

Several passages in this work will appear obscure, and a few perhaps unintelligible, owing to the occurrence in the manuscript of some words, so illegible, that those best acquainted with Mr Bentham’s hand-writing have been unable to decypher them. The only liberty taken with the manuscript has been that of supplying, in these comparatively few cases, the best conjectural word that could be imagined. It has been deemed a duty to publish these papers in the state in which Mr Bentham left them, it being no part of the office of an Editor to intermeddle with the thoughts and expressions of the author.

SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

London,May, 1841.

[* ] The essential excellence of this system is not lessened by its having been found to be practicable, after experience in the working of it, to improve the monitorial part of it.