Principles of Morals and

Principles of Morals and Legislation/7
be observed how in some respects it fails of quadrating with the design
announced by its original title, as in others it does with that announced
by the one it bears at present.
An introduction to a work which takes for its subject the totality of
any science, ought to contain all such matters, and such matters only, as
belong in common to every particular branch of that science, or at least
to more branches of it than one. Compared with its present title, the
present work fails in both ways of being conformable to that rule.
As an introduction to the principles of morals, in addition to the
analysis it contains of the extensive ideas signified by the terms plea-
sure,  pain,  motive, and disposition, it ought to have given a similar
analysis of the not less extensive, though much less determinate, ideas
annexed to the terms emotion, passion, appetite, virtue, vice, and some
others, including the names of the particular virtues and vices. But as
the true, and, if he conceives right, the only true ground-work for the
development of the latter set of terms, has been laid by the explanation
of the former, the completion of such a dictionary, so to style it, would,
in comparison of the commencement, be little more than a mechanical
operation.
 Again, as an introduction to the principles of legislation in gen-
eral, it ought rather to have included matters belonging exclusively to
the civil branch, than matters more particularly applicable to the penal:
the latter being but a means of compassing the ends proposed by the
former. In preference therefore, or at least in priority, to the several
chapters which will be found relative to punishment, it ought to have
exhibited a set of propositions which have since presented themselves to
him as affording a standard for the operations performed by govern-
ment, in the creation and distribution of proprietary and other civil rights.
He means certain axioms of what may be termed mental pathology,
expressive of the connection betwixt the feelings of the parties con-
cerned, and the several classes of incidents, which either call for, or are
produced by, operations of the nature above mentioned.
1
The consideration of the division of offences, and every thing else
that belongs to offences, ought, besides, to have preceded the consider-
ation of punishment: for the idea of punishment presupposes the idea of
offence: punishment, as such, not being inflicted but in consideration of
offence.
Lastly, the analytical discussions relative to the classification of
offences would, according to his present views, be transferred to a sepa-

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8/Jeremy Bentham
rate treatise, in which the system of legislation is considered solely in
respect of its form: in other words, in respect of its method and termi-
nology.
In these respects the performance fails of coming up to the author’s
own ideas of what should have been exhibited in a work, bearing the
title he has now given it. viz., that of an Introduction to the Principles
of Morals and Legislation. He knows however of no other that would
be less unsuitable: nor in particular would so adequate an intimation of
its actual contents have been given, by a title corresponding to the more
limited design, with which it was written: viz., that of serving as an
introduction to a penal code.
 Yet more. Dry and tedious as a great part of the discussions it
contains must unavoidably be found by the bulk of readers, he knows
not how to regret the having written them, nor even the having made
them public. Under every head, the practical uses, to which the discus-
sions contained under that head appeared applicable, are indicated: nor
is there, he believes, a single proposition that he has not found occasion
to build upon in the penning of some article or other of those provisions
of detail, of which a body of law, authoritative or unauthoritative, must
be composed. He will venture to specify particularly, in this view, the
several chapters shortly characterized by the words Sensibility, Actions,
Intentionality,  Consciousness, Motives, Dispositions,  Consequences.
Even in the enormous chapter on the division of offenses, which, not-
withstanding the forced compression the plan has undergone in several
of its parts, in manner there mentioned, occupies no fewer than one
hundred and four closely printed quarto pages, the ten concluding ones
are employed in a statement of the practical advantages that may be
reaped from the plan of classification which it exhibits. Those in whose
sight the Defence of Usury has been fortunate enough to find favour,
may reckon as one instance of those advantages the discovery of the
principles developed in that little treatise. In the preface to an anony-
mous tract published so long ago as in 1776,
2
 he had hinted at the utility
of a natural classification of offenses, in the character of a test for dis-
tinguishing genuine from spurious ones. The case of usury is one among
a number of instances of the truth of that observation. A note at the end
of Sect. xxxv. chap. xvi. of the present publication, may serve to show
how the opinions, developed in that tract, owed their origin to the diffi-
culty experienced in the attempt to find a place in his system for that
imaginary offense. To some readers, as a means of helping them to sup-

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