Principles of Morals and

Principles of Morals and Legislation/161
be as various as the relations by which they are constituted. This will be
seen more particularly farther on. In the mean time those of husband,
wife, parent, child, master, servant, citizen of such or such a city, natu-
ral-born subject of such or such a country, may answer the purpose of
examples.
 Where there is no such particular connection, or (what comes to
the same thing) where the disposition, whatever it may be, which a man
is in to render you service, is not considered as depending upon such
connection, but simply upon the good-will he bears to you; in such case,
in order to express what chance you have of deriving a benefit from his
services, a kind of fictitious object of property is spoken of, as being
constituted in your favour, and is called your reputation. An offence,
therefore, the tendency of which is to lessen the facility you might other-
wise have had of deriving happiness or security from the services of
persons at large, whether connected with you or not by any special tie,
may be styled an offence against your reputation. It appears, therefore,
that if by any offence an individual becomes a sufferer, it must be in one
or other of the four points above mentioned; viz., his person, his prop-
erty, his condition in life, or his reputation. These sources of distinction,
then, may serve to form so many subordinate divisions. If any offences
should be found to affect a person in more than one of these points at the
same time, such offences may respectively be put under so many sepa-
rate divisions; and such compound divisions may be subjoined to the
preceding simple ones The several divisions (simple and compound to-
gether) which are hereinafter established, stand as follows: 1. Offenses
against person. 2. Offenses against reputation. 3. Offenses against prop-
erty. 4. Offenses against condition. 5. Offenses against person and prop-
erty together. 6. Offenses against person and reputation together.
XII. Next with regard to semi-public offences. Pain, considered with
reference to the time of the act from which it is liable to issue, must, it is
evident, be either present, past, or future. In as far as it is either present
or past, it cannot be the result of any act which comes under the descrip-
tion of a semi-public offence: for if it be present or past, the individuals
who experience, or who have experienced, it are assignable. There re-
mains that sort of mischief, which, if it ever come to exist at all, is as yet
but future: mischief, thus circumstanced, takes the name of danger. Now,
then, when by means of the act of any person a whole neighbourhood, or
other class of persons, are exposed to danger, this danger must either be
intentional on his part, or unintentional. If unintentional, such danger,

---

162/Jeremy Bentham
when it is converted into actual mischief, takes the name of a calamity:
offences, productive of such danger, may be styled semi-public offences
operating through calamity; or, more briefly, offences through calam-
ity. If the danger be intentional, insomuch that it might be produced, and
might convert itself into actual mischief, without the concurrence of any
calamity, it may be said to originate in mere delinquency: offences, then,
which, without the concurrence of any calamity, tend to produce such
danger as disturbs the security of a local, or other subordinate class of
persons, may be styled semi-public offences operating merely by delin-
quency, or more briefly, offences of mere delinquency.
XIII. With regard to any farther sub-divisions, offences through
calamity will depend upon the nature of the several calamities to which
man, and the several things that are of use to him, stand exposed. These
will be considered in another place.
XIV. Semi-public offences of mere delinquency will follow the
method of division applied to offences against individuals. It will easily
be conceived, that whatever pain or inconvenience any given individual
may be made to suffer, to the danger of that pain or inconvenience may
any number of individuals, assignable or not assignable, be exposed.
Now there are four points or articles, as we have seen, in respect to
which an individual may be made to suffer pain or inconvenience. If
then, with respect to any one of them, the connection of causes and
effects is such, that to the danger of suffering in that article a number of
persons, who individually are not assignable, may, by the delinquency
of one person, be exposed, such article will form a ground of distinction
on which a particular sub-division of semi-public offences may be es-
tablished: if, with respect to any such article, no such effect can take
place, that ground of distinction will lie for the present unoccupied:
ready, however, upon any change of circumstances, or in the manner of
viewing the subject, to receive a correspondent subdivision of offences,
if ever it should seem necessary that any such offences should be cre-
ated.
XV. We come next to self-regarding offences; or, more properly, to
acts productive in the first instance of no other than a self-regarding
mischief: acts which, if in any instance it be thought fit to constitute
them offences, will come under the denomination of offences against
one’s self. This class will not for the present give us much trouble. For
it is evident, that in whatever points a man is vulnerable by the hand of
another, in the same points may he be conceived to be vulnerable by his

---