The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham

Bentham's central concern during the 1810s and 1820s was with the codification of the law. Rejecting both the common law and the historical approach to codification, he argued that a code of law should be based on a rigorous logical analysis of the categories of human action, and that each enactment should be followed by the reasons which justified it. Such an `all-comprehensive' code containing an `interwoven rationale' would signal a new era in legislation. Once one state had adopted such a code, other states would be obliged to follow its example, and Bentham would become in effect 'legislator of the world'.

Bentham attempted to persuade legislative authorities in the United States of America, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Greece, South and Central America, and elsewhere, to invite him to draft a code of law for them. The works presented in this volume record in fascinating detail Bentham's dealings with such eminent figures as James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Emperor Alexander I, Prince Adam Czartoryski, Alexander Mavrokordatos, Bernadino Rivadavia, and José del Valle.

The production of a methodology for codification ranks as one of Bentham's outstanding theoretical achievements. Through the materials presented in this volume he emerges as a seminal figure in the development of liberalism throughout Europe and America in the early nineteenth century.

Readership: Scholars and students of the history of political thought, jurisprudence, and political philosophy; intellectual historians.

Edited by Philip Schofield, Reader in the History of Legal and Political Thought, and Jonathan Harris, Research Fellow, Bentham Project, both at University College London

"The editors... leave all who are fascinated, exasperated, puzzled by, or just interested in, Bentham much in their debt." - The Cambridge Law Journal

Editorial Introduction
Papers Relative to Codification and Public Instruction: Including Correspondence with the Russian Emperor and Divers Constituted Authorities in the American United States
First Lines of a Proposed Code of Law for any Nation Compleat and Rationalized Codification Proposal, Addressed by Jeremy Bentham to all Nations Professing Liberal Opinions
Collations
Index of Subjects
Index of Names

Link to Bentham Project home page