Principles of Morals and

Principles of Morals and Legislation/9
port the fatigue of wading through an analysis of such enormous length,
he would almost recommend the beginning with those ten concluding
pages.
One good at least may result from the present publication; viz., that
the more he has trespassed on the patience of the reader on this occa-
sion, the less need he will have so to do on future ones: so that this may
do to those, the office which is done, by books of pure mathematics, to
books of mixed mathematics and natural philosophy. The narrower the
circle of readers is, within which the present work may be condemned to
confine itself, the less limited may be the number of those to whom the
fruits of his succeeding labours may be found accessible. He may there-
fore in this respect find himself in the condition of those philosophers of
antiquity, who are represented as having held two bodies of doctrine, a
popular and an occult one: but, with this difference, that in his instance
the occult and the popular will, he hopes, be found as consistent as in
those they were contradictory; and that in his production whatever there
is of occultness has been the pure result of sad necessity, and in no
respect of choice.
Having, in the course of this advertisement, had such frequent occa-
sion to allude to different arrangements, as having been suggested by
more extensive and maturer views, it may perhaps contribute to the
satisfaction of the reader, to receive a short intimation of their nature:
the rather, as, without such explanation, references, made here and there
to unpublished works, might be productive of perplexity and mistake.
The following then are the titles of the works by the publication of which
his present designs would be completed. They are exhibited in the order
which seemed to him best fitted for apprehension, and in which they
would stand disposed, were the whole assemblage ready to come out at
once: but the order, in which they will eventually appear, may probably
enough be influenced in some degree by collateral and temporary con-
siderations.
Part the 1st. Principles of legislation in matters of civil, more dis-
tinctively termed private distributive, or for shortness, distributive, law.
Part the 2nd. Principles of legislation in matters of penal law.
Part the 3rd. Principles of legislation in matters of procedure: unit-
ing in one view the criminal and civil branches, between which no line
can be drawn, but a very indistinct one, and that continually liable to
variation.
Part the 4th. Principles of legislation in matters of reward.

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10/Jeremy Bentham
Part the 5th. Principles of legislation in matters of public distribu-
tive, more concisely as well as familiarly termed constitutional, law.
Part the 6th. Principles of legislation in matters of political tactics:
or of the art of maintaining order in the proceedings of political assem-
blies, so as to direct them to the end of their institution: viz., by a system
of rules, which are to the constitutional branch, in some respects, what
the law of procedure is to the civil and the penal.
Part the 7th. Principles of legislation in matters betwixt nation and
nation, or, to use a new though not inexpressive appellation, in matters
of international law.
Part the 8th. Principles of legislation in matters of finance.
Part the 9th. Principles of legislation in matters of political economy.
Part the 10th. Plan of a body of law, complete in all its branches,
considered in respect of its form; in other words, in respect of its method
and terminology; including a view of the origination and connexion of
the ideas expressed by the short list of terms, the exposition of which
contains all that can be said with propriety to belong to the head of
universal jurisprudence.
3
The use of the principles laid down under the above several heads is
to prepare the way for the body of law itself exhibited in terminis; and
which to be complete, with reference to any political state, must conse-
quently be calculated for the meridian, and adapted to the circumstances,
of some one such state in particular.
Had he an unlimited power of drawing upon time, and every other
condition necessary, it would be his wish to postpone the publication of
each part to the completion of the whole. In particular, the use of the ten
parts, which exhibit what appear to him the dictates of utility in every
line, being no other than to furnish reasons for the several correspond-
ing provisions contained in the body of law itself, the exact truth of the
former can never be precisely ascertained, till the provisions, to which
they are destined to apply, are themselves ascertained, and that in
terminis. But as the infirmity of human nature renders all plans precari-
ous in the execution, in proportion as they are extensive in the design,
and as he has already made considerable advances in several branches
of the theory, without having made correspondent advances in the prac-
tical applications, he deems it more than probable, that the eventual
order of publication will not correspond exactly with that which, had it
been equally practicable, would have appeared most eligible. Of this
irregularity the unavoidable result will be, a multitude of imperfections,

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Principles of Morals and Legislation/11
which, if the execution of the body of law in terminis had kept pace with
the development of the principles, so that each part had been adjusted
and corrected by the other, might have been avoided. His conduct how-
ever will be the less swayed by this inconvenience, from his suspecting
it to be of the number of those in which the personal vanity of the author
is much more concerned, than the instruction of the public: since what-
ever amendments may be suggested in the detail of the principles, by the
literal fixation of the provisions to which they are relative, may easily
be made in a corrected edition of the former, succeeding upon the pub-
lication of the latter.
In the course of the ensuing pages, references will be found, as
already intimated, some to the plan of a penal code to which this work
was meant as an introduction, some to other branches of the above-
mentioned general plan, under titles somewhat different from those, by
which they have been mentioned here. The giving this warning is all
which it is in the author’s power to do, to save the reader from the
perplexity of looking out for what has not as yet any existence. The
recollection of the change of plan will in like manner account for several
similar incongruities not worth particularizing.
Allusion was made, at the outset of this advertisement, to some
unspecified difficulties, as the causes of the original suspension, and
unfinished complexion, of the present work. Ashamed of his defeat, and
unable to dissemble it, he knows not how to reface himself the benefit of
such an apology as a slight sketch of the nature of those difficulties may
afford..
The discovery of them was produced by the attempt to solve the
questions that will be found at the conclusion of the volume: Wherein
consisted the identity and completeness of a law? What the distinction,
and where the separation, between a penal and a civil law? What the
distinction, and where the separation, between the penal and other
branches of the law?
To give a complete and correct answer to these questions, it is but
too evident that the relations and dependencies of every part of the leg-
islative system, with respect to every other, must have been compre-
hended and ascertained. But it is only upon a view of these parts them-
selves, that such an operation could have been performed. To the accu-
racy of such a survey one necessary condition would therefore be, the
complete existence of the fabric to be surveyed. To the performance of
this condition no example is as yet to be met with any where. Common

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