PREFACE.



The following sheets were, as the note[1] on the opposite page expresses, 

printed so long ago as the year 1780. The design, in pursuance of which they 

were written, was not so extensive as that announced by the present title. 

They had at that time no other destination than that of serving as an 

introduction to a plan of a penal code in terminus, designed to follow them, 

in the same volume.



The body of the work had received its completion according to the then 

present extent of the author's views, when, in the investigation of some 

flaws he had discovered, he found himself unexpectedly entangled in an 

unsuspected corner of the metaphysical maze. A suspension, at first not 

apprehended to be more than a temporary one, necessarily ensued: suspension 

brought on coolness, and coolness, aided by other concurrent causes, ripened 

into disgust.



Imperfections pervading the whole mass had already been pointed out by the 

sincerity of severe and discerning friends; and conscience had certified the 

justness of their censure. The inordinate length of some of the chapters, 

the apparent inutility of others, and the dry and metaphysical turn of the 

whole, suggested an apprehension, that, if published in its present form, 

the work would contend under great disadvantages for any chance, it might on 

other accounts possess, of being read, and consequently of being of use.



But, though in this manner the idea of completing the present work slid 

insensibly aside, that was not by any means the case with the considerations 

which had led him to engage in it. Every opening, which promised to afford 

the lights he stood in need of, was still pursued: as occasion arose the 

several departments connected with that in which he had at first engaged, 

were successively explored; insomuch that, in one branch or other of the 

pursuit, his researches have nearly embraced the whole field of legislation. 



Several causes have conspired at present to bring to light, under this new 

title, a work which under its original one had been imperceptibly, but as it 

had seemed irrevocably, doomed to oblivion. In the course of eight years, 

materials for various works, corresponding to the different branches of the 

subject of legislation, had been produced, and some nearly reduced to shape: 

and, in every one of those works, the principles exhibited in the present 

publication had been found so necessary, that, either to transcribe them 

piece-meal, or to exhibit them somewhere where they could be referred to in 

the lump, was found unavoidable. The former course would have occasioned 

repetitions too bulky to be employed without necessity in the execution of a 

plan unavoidably so voluminous: the latter was therefore indisputably the 

preferable one.



To publish the materials in the form in which they were already printed, or 

to work them up into a new one, was therefore the only alternative: the 

latter had all along been his wish, and, had time and the requisite degree 

of alacrity been at command, it would as certainly have been realised. 

Cogent considerations, however, concur, with the irksomeness of the task, in 

placing the accomplishment of it at present at an unfathomable distance.



Another consideration is, that the suppression of the present work, had it 

been ever so decidedly wished, is no longer altogether in his power. In the 

course of so long an interval, various incidents have introduced copies into 

various hands, from some of which they have been transferred by deaths and 

other accidents, into others that are unknown to him. Detached, but 

considerable extracts, have even been published, without any dishonourable 

views (for the name of the author was very honestly subjoined to them), but 

without his privity, and in publications undertaken without his knowledge.



It may perhaps be necessary to add, to complete his excuse for offering to 

the public a work pervaded by blemishes, which have not escaped even the 

author's partial eye, that the censure, so justly bestowed upon the form, 

did not extend itself to the matter.



In sending it thus abroad into the world with all its imperfections upon its 

head, he thinks it may be of assistance to the few readers he can expect, to 

receive a short intimation of the chief particulars, in respect of which it 

fails of corresponding with his maturer views. It will thence 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 pleasure, 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 general, 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 government, in the creation and 

distribution of proprietary and other civil rights. He means certain 

axioms[2] of what may be termed mental pathology, expressive of the 

connection betwixt the feelings of the parties concerned, and the several 

classes of incidents, which either call for, or are produced by, operations 

of the nature above mentioned.



The consideration of the division of offences, and every thing else that 

belongs to offences, ought, besides, to have preceded the consideration 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 separate 

treatise, in which the system of legislation is considered solely in respect 

of its form: in other words, in respect of its method and terminology.



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 discussions 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, notwithstanding 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,[3] 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 anonymous tract[4] published so long ago as 

in 1776, he had hinted at the utility of a natural classification of 

offenses, in the character of a test for distinguishing 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 difficulty 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 support the fatigue of wading through an 

analysis of such enormous length, he would almost recommend the beginning 

with those ten concluding pages.



One good at least may result from the present publication; viz. that the 

more he has trespassed on the patience of the reader on this occasion, the 

less need he will have so to do on future ones: so that this may do to 

those, the office which is done, by books of pure mathematics, to books of 

mixed mathematics and natural philosophy. The narrower the circle of readers 

is, within which the present work may be condemned to confine itself, the 

less limited may be the number of those to whom the fruits of his succeeding 

labours may be found accessible. He may therefore in this respect find 

himself in the condition of those philosophers of antiquity, who are 

represented as having held two bodies of doctrine, a popular and an occult 

one: but, with this difference, that in his instance the occult and the 

popular will, he hopes, be found as consistent as in those they were 

contradictory; and that in his production whatever there is of occultness 

has been the pure result of sad necessity, and in no respect of choice.



Having, in the course of this advertisement, had such frequent occasion to 

allude to different arrangements, as having been suggested by more extensive 

and maturer views, it may perhaps contribute to the satisfaction of the 

reader, to receive a short intimation of their nature: the rather, as, 

without such explanation, references, made here and there to unpublished 

works, might be productive of perplexity and mistake. The following then are 

the titles of the works by the publication of which his present designs 

would be completed. They are exhibited in the order which seemed to him best 

fitted for apprehension, and in which they would stand disposed, were the 

whole assemblage ready to come out at once: but the order, in which they 

will eventually appear, may probably enough be influenced in some degree by 

collateral and temporary considerations.



Part the 1st. Principles of legislation in matters of civil, more 

distinctively termed private distributive, or for shortness, distributive, 

law.



Part the 2nd. Principles of legislation in matters of penal law.



Part the 3rd. Principles of legislation in matters of procedure: uniting in 

one view the criminal and civil branches, between which no line can be 

drawn, but a very indistinct one, and that continually liable to variation.



Part the 4th. Principles of legislation in matters of reward.



Part the 5th. Principles of legislation in matters of public distributive, 

more concisely as well as familiarly termed constitutional, law.



Part the 6th. Principles of legislation in matters of political tactics: or 

of the art of maintaining order in the proceedings of political assemblies, 

so as to direct them to the end of their institution: viz. by a system of 

rules, which are to the constitutional branch, in some respects, what the 

law of procedure is to the civil and the penal.



Part the 7th. Principles of legislation in matters betwixt nation and 

nation, or, to use a new though not inexpressive appellation, in matters of 

international law.



Part the 8th. Principles of legislation in matters of finance.



Part the 9th. Principles of legislation in matters of political economy.



Part the 10th. Plan of a body of law, complete in all its branches, 

considered in respect of its form; in other words, in respect of its method 

and terminology; including a view of the origination and connexion of the 

ideas expressed by the short list of terms,[5] the exposition of which 

contains all that can be said with propriety to belong to the head of 

universal jurisprudence.



The use of the principles laid down under the above several heads is to 

prepare the way for the body of law itself exhibited in terminis; and which 

to be complete, with reference to any political state, must consequently be 

calculated for the meridian, and adapted to the circumstances, of some one 

such state in particular.



Had he an unlimited power of drawing upon time, and every other condition 

necessary, it would be his wish to postpone the publication of each part to 

the completion of the whole. In particular, the use of the ten parts, which 

exhibit what appear to him the dictates of utility in every line, being no 

other than to furnish reasons for the several corresponding provisions 

contained in the body of law itself, the exact truth of the former can never 

be precisely ascertained, till the provisions, to which they are destined to 

apply, are themselves ascertained, and that in terminis. But as the 

infirmity of human nature renders all plans precarious in the execution, in 

proportion as they are extensive in the design, and as he has already made 

considerable advances in several branches of the theory, without having made 

correspondent advances in the practical applications, he deems it more than 

probable, that the eventual order of publication will not correspond exactly 

with that which, had it been equally practicable, would have appeared most 

eligible. Of this irregularity the unavoidable result will be, a multitude 

of imperfections, which, if the execution of the body of law in terminis had 

kept pace with the development of the principles, so that each part had been 

adjusted and corrected by the other, might have been avoided. His conduct 

however will be the less swayed by this inconvenience, from his suspecting 

it to be of the number of those in which the personal vanity of the author 

is much more concerned, than the instruction of the public: since whatever 

amendments may be suggested in the detail of the principles, by the literal 

fixation of the provisions to which they are relative, may easily be made in 

a corrected edition of the former, succeeding upon the publication of the 

latter.



In the course of the ensuing pages, references will be found, as already 

intimated, some to the plan of a penal code to which this work was meant as 

an introduction, some to other branches of the above-mentioned general plan, 

under titles somewhat different from those, by which they have been 

mentioned here. The giving this warning is all which it is in the author's 

power to do, to save the reader from the perplexity of looking out for what 

has not as yet any existence. The recollection of the change of plan will in 

like manner account for several similar incongruities not worth 

particularizing.



Allusion was made, at the outset of this advertisement, to some unspecified 

difficulties, as the causes of the original suspension, and unfinished 

complexion, of the present work. Ashamed of his defeat, and unable to 

dissemble it, he knows not how to reface himself the benefit of such an 

apology as a slight sketch of the nature of those difficulties may afford.



The discovery of them was produced by the attempt to solve the questions 

that will be found at the conclusion of the volume: Wherein consisted the 

identity and completeness of a law? What the distinction, and where the 

separation, between a penal and a civil law? What the distinction, and where 

the separation, between the penal and other branches of the law?



To give a complete and correct answer to these questions, it is but too 

evident that the relations and dependencies of every part of the legislative 

system, with respect to every other, must have been comprehended and 

ascertained. But it is only upon a view of these parts themselves, that such 

an operation could have been performed. To the accuracy of such a survey one 

necessary condition would therefore be, the complete existence of the fabric 

to be surveyed. To the performance of this condition no example is as yet to 

be met with any where. Common law, as it styles itself in England, judiciary 

law as it might aptly be styled every where. that fictitious composition 

which has no known person 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 application. 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 unexampled 

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 commentary 

of reasons:[6] 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 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 extensive. 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 compress 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.







1. The First Edition of this work was printed in the year 1780; and first 

published in 1789. The present Edition is a careful reprint of ‘A New 

Edition, corrected by the Author’, which was published in 1823.



2. For example. -- It is worse to lose than simply not to gain. -- A loss 

falls the lighter by being divided. -- The suffering of a person hurt in 

gratification of enmity, is greater than the gratification produced lay the 

same cause. -- These, and a few others which he will have occasion to 

exhibit at the head of another publication, have the same claim to the 

appellation of axioms as those given by mathematicians under that name; 

since, referring to universal experience as their immediate basis, they are 

incapable of demonstration, and require only to be developed and illustrated 

in order to be recognized as incontestable.



3. The first edition was published in 1789, in quarto.



4. A Fragment on Government, &c., reprinted 1822.



5. Such as obligation, right, power, possession, title, exemption, immunity, 

franchise, privilege, nullity, validity, and the like.



6. To the aggregate of them a common denomination has since been allotted -- 

the rationale.