Principles of Morals and

Principles of Morals and Legislation/163
own. Whatever divisions therefore will serve for the first class, the same
will serve for this. As to the questions, What acts are productive of a
mischief of this stamp? and, among such as are, which it may, and
which it may not, be worth while to treat upon the footing of offences?
these are points, the latter of which at least is too unsettled, and too open
to controversy, to be laid down with that degree of confidence which is
implied in the exhibition of properties which are made use of as the
groundwork of an arrangement. Properties for this purpose ought to be
such as show themselves at first glance, and appear to belong to the
subject beyond dispute.
XVI. Public offences may be distributed under eleven divisions. 1.
Offences against external security. 2. Offences against justice. 3. Of-
fences against the preventive branch of the police. 4. Offences against
the public force. 5. Offences against the positive increase of the national
felicity. 6. Offences against the public wealth. 7. Offences against popu-
lation. 8. Offences against the national wealth. 9. Offences against the
sovereignty. 10. Offences against religion. 11. Offences against the na-
tional interest in general. The way in which these several sorts of of-
fences connect with one another, and with the interest of the public, that
is, of an unassignable multitude of the individuals of which that body is
composed, may be thus conceived.
XVII. Mischief by which the interest of the public as above defined
may be affected, must, if produced at all, be produced either by means
of an influence exerted on the operations of government, or by other
means, without the exertion of such influence. To begin with the latter
case: mischief, be it what it will, and let it happen to whom it will, must
be produced either by the unassisted powers of the agent in question, or
by the instrumentality of some other agents. In the latter case, these
agents will be either persons or things. Persons again must be either not
members of the community in question, or members. Mischief produced
by the instrumentality of persons, may accordingly be produced by the
instrumentality either of external or of internal adversaries. Now when
it is produced by the agent’s own unassisted powers, or by the instru-
mentality of internal adversaries, or only by the instrumentality of things,
it is seldom that it can show itself in any other shape (setting aside any
influence it may exert on the operations of government) than either that
of an offence against assignable individuals, or that of an offence against
a local or other subordinate class of persons. If there should be a way in
which mischief can be produced, by any of these means, to individuals

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164/Jeremy Bentham
altogether unassignable, it will scarcely be found conspicuous or im-
portant enough to occupy a title by itself: it may accordingly be referred
to the miscellaneous head of offences against the national interest in
general. The only mischief, of any considerable account, which can be
made to impend indiscriminately over the whole number of members in
the community, is that complex kind of mischief which results from a
state of war, and is produced by the instrumentality of external adver-
saries; by their being provoked, for instance, or invited, or encouraged
to invasion. In this way may a man very well bring down a mischief, and
that a very heavy one, upon the whole community in general, and that
without taking a part in any of the injuries which came in consequence
to be offered to particular individuals.
Next with regard to the mischief which an offence may bring upon
the public by its influence on the operations of the government. This it
may occasion either, 1. In a more immediate way, by its influence on
those operations themselves: 2. In a more remote way, by its influence
on the instruments by or by the help of which those operations should
be performed: or 3. In a more remote way still, by its influence on the
sources from whence such instruments are to be derived. First then, as
to the operations of government, the tendency of these, in as far as it is
conformable to what on the principle of utility it ought to be, is in every
case either to avert mischief from the community, or to make an addi-
tion to the sum of positive good. Now mischief, we have seen, must
come either from external adversaries, from internal adversaries, or from
calamities. With regard to mischief from external adversaries, there re-
quires no further division. As to mischief from internal adversaries, the
expedients employed for averting it may be distinguished into such as
may be applied before the discovery of any mischievous design in par-
ticular, and such as cannot be employed but in consequence of the dis-
covery of some such design: the former of these are commonly referred
to a branch which may be styled the preventive branch of the police: the
latter to that of justice. Secondly, As to the instruments which govern-
ment, whether in the averting of evil or in the producing of positive
good, can have to work with, these must be either persons or things.
Those which are destined to the particular function of guarding against
mischief from adversaries in general, but more particularly from exter-
nal adversaries, may be distinguished from the rest under the collective
appellation of the public military force, and, for conciseness’ sake, the
military force. The rest may be characterized by the collective appella-

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