Principles of Morals and

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LXVI. Characters of Class 5, or appendix: composed of 
MULTIFORM
or 
ANOMALOUS
 offences; and containing offences by 
FALSEHOOD
, and of-
fences concerning 
TRUST
.
1.Taken collectively, in the parcels marked out by their popular
appellations, they are incapable of being aggregated to any systematical
method of distribution, grounded upon the mischief of the offence.
2.They may, however, be thrown into sub-divisions, which may be
aggregated to such a method of distribution.
3.These sub-divisions will naturally and readily rank under the di-
visions of the several preceding classes of this system.
4.Each of the two great divisions of this class spreads itself in that
manner over all the preceding classes.
5.In some acts of this class, the distinguishing circumstance which
constitutes the essential character of the offence, will in some instances
enter necessarily, in the character of a criminative circumstance, into
the constitution of the offence; insomuch that, without the intervention
of this circumstance, no offence at all, of that denomination, can be
committed. In other instances, the offence may subsist without it; and
where it interferes, it comes in as an accidental independent circum-
stance, capable of constituting a ground of aggravation.

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Chapter XVII: Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of
Jurisprudence
§1. 
Limits between Private Ethics and the Art of
legislation
I. So much for the division of offenses in general. Now an offense is an
act prohibited, or (what comes to the same thing) an act of which the
contrary is commanded, by the law: and what is it that the law can be
employed in doing, besides prohibiting and commanding? It should seem
then, according to this view of the matter, that were we to have settled
what may be proper to be done with relation to offences, we should
thereby have settled every thing that may be proper to be done in the
way of law. Yet that branch which concerns the method of dealing with
offences, and which is termed sometimes the criminal, sometimes the
penal, branch, is universally understood to be but one out of two branches
which compose the whole subject of the art of legislation; that which is
termed the civil being the other. Between these two branches then, it is
evident enough, there cannot but be a very intimate connection; so inti-
mate is it indeed, that the limits between them are by no means easy to
mark out. The case is the same in some degree between the whole busi-
ness of legislation (civil and penal branches taken together) and that of
private ethics. Of these several limits however it will be in a manner
necessary to exhibit some idea: lest, on the one hand, we should seem to
leave any part of the subject that does belong to as untouched, or, on the
other hand, to deviate on any side into a track which does not belong to
us.
In the course of this enquiry, that part of it I mean which concerns

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Principles of Morals and Legislation/225
the limits between the civil and the penal branch of law, it will be neces-
sary to settle a number of points, of which the connection with the main
question might not at first sight be suspected. To ascertain what sort of
a thing a law is; what the parts are that are to be found in it; what it
must contain in order to be complete; what the connection is between
that part of a body of laws which belongs to the subject of procedure
and the rest of the law at large:—all these, it will be seen, are so many
problems, which must be solved before any satisfactory answer can be
given to the main question above mentioned.
Nor is this their only use: for it is evident enough, that the notion of
a complete law must first be fixed, before the legislator can in any case
know what it is he has to do, or when his work is done.
II. Ethics at large may be defined, the art of directing men’s actions
to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness, on the
part of those whose interest is in view.
III. What then are the actions which it can be in a man’s power to
direct? They must be either his own actions, or those of other agents.
Ethics, in as far as it is the art of directing a man’s own actions, may be
styled the art of self-government, or private ethics.
IV. What other agents then are there, which, at the same time that
they are under the influence of man’s direction, are susceptible of happi-
ness. They are of two sorts: 1. Other human beings who are styled per-
sons. 2. Other animals, which, on account of their interests having been
neglected by the insensibility of the ancient jurists, stand degraded into
the class of things. As to other human beings, the art of directing their
actions to the above end is what we mean, or at least the only thing
which, upon the principle of utility, we ought to mean, by the art of
government: which, in as far as the measures it displays itself in are of
a permanent nature, is generally distinguished by the name of legisla-
tion: as it is by that of administration, when they are of a temporary
nature, determined by the occurrences of the day.
V. Now human creatures, considered with respect to the maturity of
their faculties, are either in an adult, or in a non-adult state. The art of
government, in as far as it concerns the direction of the actions of per-
sons in a non-adult state, may be termed the art of education. In as far
as this business is entrusted with those who, in virtue of some private
relationship, are in the main the best disposed to take upon them, and
the best able to discharge, this office, it may be termed the art of private
education: in as far as it is exercised by those whose province it is to

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