Principles of Morals and

12/Jeremy Bentham
law, as it styles itself in England, judiciary law as it might aptly be
styled every where. that fictitious composition which has no known per-
son for its author, no known assemblage of words for its substance,
forms every where the main body of the legal fabric: like that fancied
ether, which, in default of sensible matter, fills up the measure of the
universe. Shreds and scraps of real law, stuck on upon that imaginary
ground, compose the furniture of every national code. What follows?—
that he who, for the purpose just mentioned or for any other, wants an
example of a complete body of law to refer to, must begin with making
one.
There is, or rather there ought to be. a logic of the will. as well as of
the understanding: the operations of the former faculty, are neither less
susceptible, nor less worthy, then those of the latter, of being delineated
by rules. Of these two branches of that recondite art, Aristotle saw only
the latter: succeeding logicians, treading in the steps of their great founder,
have concurred in seeing with no other eyes. Yet so far as a difference
can be assigned between branches so intimately connected, whatever
difference there is, in point of importance, is in favour of the logic of the
will. Since it is only by their capacity of directing the operations of this
faculty, that the operations of the understanding are of any consequence.
Of this logic of the will, the science of law, considered in respect of
its form, is the most considerable branch,—the most important applica-
tion. It is, to the art of legislation, what the science of anatomy is to the
art of medicine: with this difference, that the subject of it is what the
artist has to work with, instead of being what he has to operate upon.
Nor is the body politic less in danger from a want of acquaintance with
the one science, than the body natural from ignorance in the other. One
example, amongst a thousand that might be adduced in proof of this
assertion, may be seen in the note which terminates this volume.
Such then were the difficulties: such the preliminaries:—an unex-
ampled work to achieve, and then a new science to create: a new branch
to add to one of the most abstruse of sciences.
Yet more: a body of proposed law, how complete soever, would be
comparatively useless and uninstructive, unless explained and justified,
and that in every tittle, by a continued accompaniment, a perpetual com-
mentary of reasons: which reasons, that the comparative value of such
as point in opposite directions may be estimated, and the conjunct force,
of such as point in the same direction may be felt. must be marshalled,
and put under subordination to such extensive and leading ones as are

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Principles of Morals and Legislation/13
termed principles. There must be therefore, not one system only, but
two parallel and connected systems, running on together. the one of
legislative provisions, the other of political reasons, each affording to
the other correction and support.
Are enterprises like these achievable? He knows not. This only he
knows, that they have been undertaken, proceeded in, and that some
progress has been made in all of them. He will venture to add, if at all
achievable, never at least by one, to whom the fatigue of attending to
discussions, as arid as those which occupy the ensuing pages, would
either appear useless, or feel intolerable. He will repeat it boldly (for it
has been said before him), truths that form the basis of political and
moral science are not to be discovered but by investigations as severe as
mathematical ones, and beyond all comparison more intricate and ex-
tensive. The familiarity of the terms is a presumption, but is a most
fallacious one, of the facility of the matter. Truths in general have been
called stubborn things: the truths just mentioned are so in their own
way. They are not to be forced into detached and general propositions,
unincumbered with explanations and exceptions. They will not com-
press themselves into epigrams. They recoil from the tongue and the pen
of the declaimer. They flourish not in the same soil with sentiment. They
grow among thorns; and are not to be plucked, like daisies, by infants as
they run. Labour, the inevitable lot of humanity, is in no track more
inevitable than here. In vain would an Alexander bespeak a peculiar
road for royal vanity, or a Ptolemy, a smoother one, for royal indolence.
There is no King’s Road, no Stadtholder’s Gate, to legislative, any more
than to mathematic science.

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Chapter I: Of The Principle of Utility
I. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we
ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand
the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and
effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all
we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our sub-
jection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man
may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain. subject
to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and
assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to
rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems
which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice
instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.
But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means
that moral science is to be improved.
II. The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work: it
will be proper therefore at the outset to give an explicit and determinate
account of what is meant by it. By the principle of utility is meant that
principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever.
according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the
happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same
thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of
every action whatsoever, and therefore not only of every action of a
private individual, but of every measure of government.
III. By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends
to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, (all this in

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