An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
By Jeremy Bentham
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.
First Pub. Date
1789
Publisher
Oxford: Clarendon Press
Pub. Date
1907
Comments
1907 reprint of 1823 edition. (First printed 1780.)
Copyright
The text of this edition is in the public domain. Picture of Jeremy Bentham courtesy of The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.
- Preface
- Chapter I, Of the Principle of Utility
- Chapter II, Of Principles Adverse to That of Utility
- Chapter III, Of the Four Sanctions or Sources of Pain and Pleasure
- Chapter IV, Value of a Lot of Pleasure or Pain, How to be Measured
- Chapter V, Pleasures and Pains, Their Kinds
- Chapter VI, Of Circumstances Influencing Sensibility
- Chapter VII, Of Human Actions in General
- Chapter VIII, Of Intentionality
- Chapter IX, Of Consciousness
- Chapter X, Of Motives
- Chapter XI, Of Human Dispositions in General
- Chapter XII, Of the Consequences of a Mischievous Act
- Chapter XIII, Cases Unmeet for Punishment
- Chapter XIV, Of the Proportion between Punishments and Offences
- Chapter XV, Of the Properties to be Given to a Lot of Punishment
- Chapter XVI, Sections 1-2, Division of Offences
- Chapter XVI, Sections 3-4, Division of Offences
- Chapter XVII, Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence
DIVISION OF OFFENCES
*1 (continued)
Chapter XVI (Sections 3-4)
§ 3.
Genera of Class I.
XXXI. Returning now to class the first, let us pursue the distribution a step farther, and branch out the several divisions of that class, as above exhibited, into their respective
genera, that is, into such minuter divisions as are capable of being characterised by denominations of which a great part are already current among the people.
*45 In this place the analysis must stop. To apply it in the same regular form to any of the other classes seems scarcely practicable: to semi-public, as also to public offences, on account of the interference of local circumstances: to self-regarding ones, on account of the necessity it would create of deciding prematurely upon points which may appear liable to controversy: to offences by falsehood, and offences against trust, on account of the dependence there is between this class and the three former. What remains to be done in this way, with reference to these four classes, will require discussion, and will therefore be introduced with more propriety in the body of the work, than in a preliminary part, of which the business is only to draw outlines.
XXXII. An act, by which the happiness of an individual is disturbed, is either
simple in its effects or
complex. It may be styled simple in its effects, when it affects him in one only of the articles or points in which his interest, as we have seen, is liable to be affected: complex, when it affects him in several of those points at once. Such as are simple in their effects must of course be first considered.
XXXIII. In a simple way, that is in one way at a time, a man’s happiness is liable to be disturbed either 1. By actions referring to his own person itself; or 2. By actions referring to such external objects on which his happiness is more or less dependent. As to his own person, it is composed of two different parts, or reputed parts, his body and his mind. Acts which exert a pernicious influence on his person, whether it be on the corporeal or on the mental part of it, will operate thereon either immediately, and without affecting his will, or mediately, through the intervention of that faculty: viz. by means of the influence which they cause his will to exercise over his body. If with the intervention of his will, it must be by
mental coercion: that is, by causing him to
will to maintain, and thence actually to maintain, a certain conduct which it is disagreeable, or in any other way pernicious, to him to maintain. This conduct may either be positive or negative:
*46 when positive, the coercion is styled
compulsion or
constraint: when negative,
restraint. Now the way in which the coercion is disagreeable to him, may be by producing either pain of body, or only pain of mind. If pain of body is produced by it, the offence will come as well under this as under other denominations, which we shall come to presently. Moreover, the conduct which a man, by means of the coercion, is forced to maintain, will be determined either specifically and originally, by the determination of the particular acts themselves which he is forced to perform or to abstain from, or generally and incidentally, by means of his being forced to be or not to be in such or such a place. But if he is prevented from being in one place, he is confined thereby to another. For the whole surface of the earth, like the surface of any greater or lesser body, may be conceived to be divided into two, as well as into any other number of parts or spots. If the spot then, which he is confined to, be smaller than the spot which he is excluded from, his condition may be called
confinement: if larger,
banishment.*47 Whether an act, the effect of which is to exert a pernicious influence on the person of him who suffers by it operates with or without the intervention of an act of his will, the mischief it produces will either be
mortal or
not mortal. If not mortal, it will either be
reparable, that is temporary, or
irreparable, that is perpetual. If reparable, the mischievous act may be termed a
simple corporal injury; if irreparable, an
irreparable corporal injury. Lastly, a pain that a man experiences in his mind will either be a pain of actual
sufferance, or a pain of
apprehension. If a pain of apprehension, either the offender himself is represented as intending to bear a part in the production of it, or he is not. In the former case the offence may be styled
menacement: in the latter case, as also where the pain is a pain of actual sufferance, a
simple mental injury. And thus we have nine genera or kinds of personal injuries; which, when ranged in the order most commodious for examination, will stand as follows; viz. 1. Simple corporal injuries. 2. Irreparable corporal injuries. 3. Simple injurious restrainment. 4. Simple injurious compulsion.
*48 5. Wrongful confinement. 6. Wrongful banishment. 7. Wrongful homicide. 8. Wrongful menacement.
*49 9. Simple mental injuries.
*50
XXXIV. We come now to offences against reputation merely. These require but few distinctions. In point of reputation there is but one way of suffering, which is by losing a portion of the good-will of others. Now, in respect of the good-will which others bear you, you may be a loser in either of two ways: 1. By the manner in which you are thought to behave
yourself; and 2. By the manner in which
others behave, or are thought to behave, towards you. To cause people to think that you yourself have so behaved, as to have been guilty of any of those acts which cause a man to possess less than he did before of the good-will of the community, is what may be styled
defamation. But such is the constitution of human nature, and such the force of prejudice, that a man merely by manifesting his own want of good-will towards you, though ever so unjust in itself, and ever so unlawfully expressed, may in a manner force others to withdraw from you a part of theirs. When he does this by words, or by such actions as have no other effect than in as far as they stand in the place of words, the offence may be styled
vilification. When it is done by such actions as, besides their having this effect, are injuries to the person, the offence may be styled a
personal insult: if it has got the length of reaching the body, a
corporal insult: if it stopped short before it reached that length, it may be styled
insulting menacement. And thus we have two
genera or kinds of offences against reputation merely; to wit, 1. Defamation: and, 2. Vilification, or Revilement.
*51 As to corporal insults, and insulting menacement, they belong to the compound title of offences against person and reputation both together.
XXXV. If the property of one man suffers by the delinquency of another, such property either was in trust with the offender, or it was not: if it was in trust, the offence is a breach of trust, and of whatever nature it may be in other respects, may be styled
dissipation in breach of trust, or
dissipation of property in trust. This is a particular case: the opposite one is the more common: in such case the several ways in which property may, by possibility, become the object of an offence, may be thus conceived. Offences against property, of whatever kind it be, may be distinguished, as hath been already intimated,
*52 into such as concern the legal possession of it, or right to it, and such as concern only the enjoyment of it, or, what is the same thing, the exercise of that right. Under the former of these heads come, as hath been already intimated,
*53 the several offences of
wrongful non-investment, wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and
wrongful attribution. When in the commission of any of these offences a falsehood has served as an instrument, and that, as it is commonly called, a
wilful, or as it might more properly be termed, an
advised*54 one, the epithet
fraudulent may be prefixed to the name of the offence, or substituted in the room of the word
wrongful. The circumstance of fraudulency then may serve to characterise a particular species, comprisable under each of those generic heads: in like manner the circumstance of
force, of which more a little farther on, may serve to characterize another. With respect to wrongful interception in particular, the
investitive event by which the title to the thing in question should have accrued to you, and for want of which such title is, through the delinquency of the offender, as it were,
intercepted, is either an act of his own, expressing it as his will, that you should be considered by the law as the person who is legally in possession of it, or it is any other event at large: in the former case, if the thing, of which you should have been put into possession, is a sum of money to a certain amount, the offence is that which has received the name of
insolvency; which branch of delinquency, in consideration of the importance and extent of it, may be treated on the footing of a distinct genus of itself.
*55
Next, with regard to such of the offences against property as concern only the enjoyment of the object in question. This object must be either a service, or set of services,
*56 which should have been rendered by some
person, or else an article belonging to the class of
things. In the former ease, the offence may be styled
wrongful withholding of services.*57 In the latter case it may admit of farther modifications, which may be thus conceived: When any object which you have had the physical occupation or enjoyment of, ceases, in any degree, in consequence of the act of another man, and without any change made in so much of that power as depends upon the intrinsic physical condition of your person, to be subject to that power; this cessation is either owing to change in the intrinsic condition of the thing itself, or in its exterior situation with respect to you, that is, to its being situated out of your reach. In the former case, the nature of the change is either such as to put it out of your power to make any use of it at all, in which case the thing is said to be
destroyed, and the offence whereby it is so treated may be termed
wrongful destruction: or such only as to render the uses it is capable of being put to of less value than before, in which case it is said to be
damaged, or to have sustained damage, and the offence may be termed
wrongful endamagement. Moreover, in as far as the value which a thing is of to you is considered as being liable to be in some degree impaired, by any act on the part of any other person exercised upon that thing, although on a given occasion no perceptible damage should ensue, the exercise of any such act is commonly treated on the footing of an offence, which may be termed
wrongful using or
occupation.
If the cause of the thing’s failing in its capacity of being of use to you, lies in the exterior situation of it with relation to you, the offence may be styled
wrongful detainment.*58 Wrongful detainment, or detention, during any given period of time, may either be accompanied with the intention of detaining the thing for ever (that is for an indefinite time), or not: if it be, and if it be accompanied at the same time with the intention of not being amenable to law for what is done, it seems to answer to the idea commonly annexed to the word
embezzlement, an offence which is commonly accompanied with breach of trust.
*59 In the case of wrongful occupation, the physical faculty of occupying may have been obtained with or without the assistance or consent of the proprietor, or other person appearing to have a right to afford such assistance or consent. If without such assistance or consent, and the occupation be accompanied with the intention of detaining the thing for ever, together with the intention of not being amenable to law for what is done, the offence seems to answer to the idea commonly annexed to the word
theft or
stealing. If in the same circumstances a force is put upon the body of any person who uses, or appears to be disposed to use, any endeavours to prevent the act, this seems to be one of the cases in which the offence is generally understood to come under the name of
robbery.
If the physical faculty in question was obtained with the assistance or consent of a proprietor or other person above spoken of, and still the occupation of the thing is an offence, it may have been either because the assistance or consent was not fairly or because it was not freely obtained. If not
fairly obtained, it was obtained by falsehood, which, if
advised, is in such a case termed
fraud: and the offence, if accompanied with the intention of not being amenable to law, may be termed
fraudulent obtainment or
defraudment.*60 If not
freely obtained, it was obtained by
force: to wit, either by a force put upon the body, which has been already mentioned, or by a force put upon the mind. If by a force put upon the mind, or in other words, by the application of coercive motives,
*61 it must be by producing the apprehension of some evil: which evil, if the act is an offence, must be some evil to which on the occasion in question the one person has no right to expose the other. This is one case in which, if the offence be accompanied with the intention of detaining the thing for ever, whether it be or be not accompanied with the intention of not being amenable to law, it seems to agree with the idea of what is commonly meant by
extortion. Now the part a man takes in exposing another to the evil in question, must be either a positive or a negative part. In the former case, again, the evil must either be present or distant. In the case then where the assistance or consent is obtained by a force put upon the body, or where, if by a force put upon the mind, the part taken in the exposing a man to the apprehension of the evil is positive, the evil present, and the object of it his person, and if at any rate the extortion, thus applied, be accompanied with the intention of not being amenable to law, it seems to agree with the remaining case of what goes under the name of
robbery.
As to dissipation in breach of trust, this, when productive of a pecuniary profit to the trustee, seems to be one species of what is commonly meant by
peculation. Another, and the only remaining one, seems to consist in acts of occupation exercised by the trustee upon the things which are the objects of the fiduciary property, for his own benefit, and to the damage of the beneficiary. As to robbery, this offence, by the manner in which the assistance or consent is obtained, becomes an offence against property and person at the same time. Dissipation in breach of trust, and peculation, may perhaps be more commodiously treated of under the head of offences against trust.
*62 After these exceptions, we have thirteen genera or principal kinds of offences against property, which, when ranged in the order most commodious for examination, may stand as follows, viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of property. 2. Wrongful interception of property. 3. Wrongful divestment of property. 4. Usurpation of property. 5. Wrongful investment of property. 6. Wrongful withholding of services. 7. Wrongful destruction or endamagement. 8. Wrongful occupation. 9. Wrongful detainment. 10. Embezzlement. 11. Theft. 12. Defraudment. 13. Extortion.
*63
We proceed now to consider offences which are complex in their effects. Regularly, indeed, we should come to offences against condition; but it will be more convenient to speak first of offences by which a man’s interest is affected in two of the preceding points at once.
XXXVI. First, then, with regard to offences which affect person and reputation together. When any man, by a mode of treatment which affects the person, injures the reputation of another, his end and purpose must have been either his own immediate pleasure, or that sort of reflected pleasure, which in certain circumstances may be reaped from the suffering of another. Now the only immediate pleasure worth regarding, which any one can reap from the person of another, and which at the same time is capable of affecting the reputation of the latter, is the pleasure of the sexual appetite.
*64 This pleasure, then, if reaped at all, must have been reaped either against the consent of the party, or with consent. If with consent, the consent must have been obtained either freely and fairly both, or freely but not fairly, or else not even freely; in which case the fairness is out of the question. If the consent be altogether wanting, the offence is called
rape: if not fairly obtained,
seduction simply: if not freely, it may be called
forcible seduction. In any case, either the offence has gone the length of consummation, or has stopped short of that period; if it has gone that length, it takes one or other of the names just mentioned: if not, it may be included alike in all cases under the denomination of a
simple lascivious injury. Lastly, to take the case where a man injuring you in your reputation, by proceedings that regard your person, does it for the sake of that sort of pleasure which will sometimes result from the contemplation of another’s pain. Under these circumstances either the offence has actually gone the length of a corporal injury, or it has rested in menacement: in the first case it may be styled a
corporal insult; in the other, it may come under the name of
insulting menacement. And thus we have six genera, or kind of offences, against person and reputation together; which, when ranged in the order most commodious for consideration, will stand thus: 1. Corporal insults. 2. Insulting menacement. 3. Seduction. 4. Rape. 5. Forcible seduction. 6. Simple lascivious injuries.
*65
XXXVII. Secondly, with respect to those which affect person and property together. That a force put upon the person of a man may be among the means by which the title to property may be unlawfully taken away or acquired, has been already stated.
*66 A force of this sort then is a circumstance which may accompany the offences of wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and wrongful investment. But in these cases the intervention of this circumstance does not happen to have given any new denomination to the offence.
*67 In all or any of these cases, however, by prefixing the epithet
forcible, we may have so many names of offences, which may either be considered as constituting so many species of the genera belonging to the division of offences against property, or as so many genera belonging to the division now before us. Among the offences that concern the enjoyment of the thing, the case is the same with wrongful destruction and wrongful endamagement; as also with wrongful occupation and wrongful detainment. As to the offence of wrongful occupation, it is only in the case where the thing occupied belongs to the class of immovables, that, when accompanied by the kind of force in question, has obtained a particular name which is in common use: in this case it is called
forcible entry: forcible detainment, as applied also to immovables, but only to immovables, has obtained, among lawyers at least, the name of
forcible detainer.*68 And thus we may distinguish ten genera, or kinds of offences, against person and property together, which, omitting for conciseness’ sake the epithet
wrongful, will stand thus: 1. Forcible interception of property. 2. Forcible divestment of property. 3. Forcible usurpation. 4. Forcible investment. 5. Forcible destruction or endamagement. 6. Forcible occupation of movables. 7. Forcible entry. 8. Forcible detainment of movables. 9. Forcible detainment of immovables. 10. Robbery.
*69
XXXVIII. We come now to offences against
condition. A man’s condition or station in life is constituted by the legal relation he bears to the persons who are about him; that is, as we have already had occasion to show,
*70 by
duties, which, by being imposed on one side, give birth to
rights or
powers on the other. These relations, it is evident, may be almost infinitely diversified. Some means, however, may be found of circumscribing the field within which the varieties of them are displayed. In the first place, they must either be such as are capable of displaying themselves within the circle of a private family, or such as require a larger space. The conditions constituted by the former sort of relations may be styled
domestic: those constituted by the latter,
civil.
XXXIX. As to domestic conditions, the legal relations by which they are constituted may be distinguished into 1. Such as are superadded to relations purely natural: and 2. Such as, without any such natural basis, subsist purely by institution. By relations purely natural, I mean those which may be said to subsist between certain persons in virtue of the concern which they themselves, or certain other persons, have had in the process which is necessary to the continuance of the species. These relations may be distinguished, in the first place, into contiguous and uncontiguous. The uncontiguous subsist through the intervention of such as are contiguous. The contiguous may be distinguished, in the first place, into
connubial, and
post-connubial.*71 Those which may be termed connubial are two: 1. That which the male bears towards the female: 2. That which the female bears to the male.
*72 The post-connubial are either
productive or
derivative. The productive is that which the male and female above-mentioned bear each of them towards the children who are the immediate fruit of their union; this is termed the relation of
parentality. Now as the parents must be, so the children may be, of different sexes. Accordingly the relation of parentality may be distinguished into four species: 1. That which a father bears to his son: this is termed
paternity. 2. That which a father bears to his daughter: this also is termed paternity. 3. That which a mother bears to her son: this is called
maternity. 4. That which a mother bears to her daughter: this also is termed maternity. Uncontiguous natural relations may be distinguished into
immediate and
remote. Such as are immediate, are what one person bears to another in consequence of their bearing each of them one simple relation to some third person. Thus the paternal grandfather is related to the paternal grandson by means of the two different kinds, which together they bear to the father: the brother on the father’s side, to the brother, by means of the two relations of the same kind, which together they bear to the father. In the same manner we might proceed to find places in the system for the infinitely diversified relations which result from the combinations that may be formed by mixing together the several sorts of relationships by
ascent, relationships by
descent,collateral relationships, and relationships by
affinity: which latter, when the union between the two parties through whom the affinity takes place is sanctioned by matrimonial solemnities, are termed relationships by
marriage. But this, as it would be a most intricate and tedious task, so happily is it, for the present purpose, an unnecessary one. The only natural relations to which it will be necessary to pay any particular attention, are those which, when sanctioned by law, give birth to the conditions of husband and wife, the two relations comprised under the head of parentality, and the corresponding relations comprised under the head of filiality or filiation.
What then are the relations of a legal kind which can be superinduced upon the above-mentioned natural relations? They must be such as it is the nature of law to give birth to and establish. But the relations which subsist purely by institution exhaust, as we shall see, the whole stock of relationships which it is in the nature of the law to give birth to and establish. The relations then which can be superinduced upon those which are purely natural, cannot be in themselves any other than what are of the number of those which subsist purely by institution: so that all the difference there can be between a legal relation of the one sort, and a legal relation of the other sort, is, that in the former case the circumstance which gave birth to the natural relation serves as a mark to indicate where the legal relation is to fix: in the latter case, the place where the legal relation is to attach is determined not by that circumstance but by some other. From these considerations it will appear manifestly enough, that for treating of the several sorts of conditions, as well natural as purely conventional, in the most commodious order, it will be necessary to give the precedence to the latter. Proceeding throughout upon the same principle, we shall all along give the priority, not to those which are first by nature, but to those which are most simple in point of description. There is no other way of avoiding perpetual anticipations and repetitions.
XL. We come now to consider the domestic or family relations, which are purely of legal institution. It is to these in effect, that both kinds of domestic conditions, considered as the work of law, are indebted for their origin. When the law, no matter for what purpose, takes upon itself to operate, in a matter in which it has not operated before, it can only be by imposing
obligation.*73 Now when a legal obligation is imposed on any man, there are but two ways in which it can in the first instance be enforced. The one is by giving the power of enforcing it to the party in whose favour it is imposed: the other is by reserving that power to certain third persons, who, in virtue of their possessing it, are styled ministers of justice. In the first case, the party favoured is said to possess not only a
right as against the party obliged, but also a
power over him: in the second case, a
right only, uncorroborated by power. In the first case, the party favoured may be styled a
superior, and as they are both members of the same family, a
domestic superior, with reference to the party obliged: who, in the same case, may be styled a
domestic inferior, with reference to the party favoured. Now in point of possibility. it is evident, that domestic conditions, or a kind of fictitious possession analogous to domestic conditions, might have been looked upon as constituted, as well by rights alone, without powers on either side, as by powers. But in point of utility
*74 it does not seem expedient: and in point of fact, probably owing to the invariable perception which men must have had of the inexpediency, no such conditions seem ever to have been constituted by such feeble bands. Of the legal relationships then, which are capable of being made to subsist within the circle of a family, there remain those only in which the obligation is enforced by power. Now then, wherever any such power is conferred, the end or purpose for which it was conferred (unless the legislator can be supposed to act without a motive) must have been the producing of a benefit to somebody: in other words, it must have been conferred for the
sake of somebody. The person then, for whose sake it is conferred, must either be one of the two parties just mentioned, or a third party: if one of these two, it must be either the superior or the inferior. If the superior, such superior is commonly called a
master; and the inferior is termed his
servant: and the power may be termed a
beneficial one. If it be for the sake of the inferior that the power is established, the superior is termed a
guardian; and the inferior his
ward: and the power, being thereby coupled with a trust, may be termed a
fiduciary one. If for the sake of a third party, the superior may be termed a
superintendent; and the inferior his
subordinate. This third party will either be an assignable individual or set of individuals, or a set of unassignable individuals. In this latter case the trust is either a public or a semi-public one: and the condition which it constitutes is not of the domestic, but of the civil kind. In the former case, this third party or
principal, as he may be termed, either has a beneficial power over the superintendent, or he has not: if he has, the superintendent is his servant, and consequently so also is the subordinate: if not, the superintendent is the master of the subordinate; and all the advantage which the principal has over his superintendent, it that of possessing a set of rights, uncorroborated by power; and therefore, as we have seen,
*75 not fit to constitute a condition of the domestic kind. But be the condition what it may which is constituted by these rights, of what nature can the obligations be, to which the superintendent is capable of being subjected by means of them? They are neither more nor less than those which a man is capable of being subjected to by powers. It follows, therefore, that the functions of a principal and his superintendent coincide with those of a master and his servant; and consequently that the offences relative to the two former conditions will coincide with the offences relative to the two latter.
XLI. Offences to which the condition of a master, like any other kind of condition, is exposed, may, as hath been already intimated
*76 be distinguished into such as concern the existence of the condition itself, and such as concern the performance of the functions of it, while subsisting. First then, with regard to such as affect its existence. It is obvious enough that the services of one man may be a benefit to another: the condition of a master may therefore be a beneficial one. It stands exposed, therefore, to the offences of
wrongful non-investment, wrongful interception, usurpation, wrongful investment, and
wrongful divestment. But how should it stand exposed to the offences of
wrongful abdication, wrongful detrectation, and
wrongful imposition? Certainly it cannot of itself; for services, when a man has the power of exacting them or not, as he thinks fit, can never be a burthen. But if to the powers, by which the condition of a master is constituted, the law thinks fit to annex any obligation on the part of the master; for instance, that of affording maintenance, or giving wages, to the servant, or paying money to anybody else; it is evident that in virtue of such obligation the condition
may become a burthen. In this case, however, the condition possessed by the master will not properly speaking, be the pure and simple condition of a master: it will be a kind of complex object, resolvable into the beneficial condition of a master, and the burthensome obligation which is annexed to it. Still however, if the nature of the obligation lies within a narrow compass, and does not, in the manner of that which constitutes a trust, interfere with the exercise of those powers by which the condition of the superior is constituted, the latter, notwithstanding this foreign mixture, will still retain the name of mastership.
*77 In this case therefore, but not otherwise, the condition of a master may stand exposed to the offences of
wrongful abdication,wrongful detrectation, and
wrongful imposition. Next as to the behaviour of persons with reference to this condition, while considered as subsisting. In virtue of its being a benefit, it is exposed to
disturbance. This disturbance will either be the offence of a stranger, or the offence of the servant himself. Where it is the offence of a stranger, and is committed by taking the person of the servant, in circumstances in which the taking of an object belonging to the class of things would be an act of theft, or (what is scarcely worth distinguishing from theft) an act of embezzlement: it may be termed
servant-stealing. Where it is the offence of the servant himself, it is styled
breach of duty. Now the most flagrant species of breach of duty, and that which includes indeed every other, is that which consists in the servant’s withdrawing himself from the place in which the duty should be performed. This species of breach of duty is termed
elopement. Again, in virtue of the power belonging to this condition, it is liable, on the part of the master to
abuse. But this power is not coupled with a trust. The condition of a master is therefore not exposed to any offence which is analogous to breach of trust. Lastly, on account of its being exposed to abuse, it may be conceived to stand, in point of possibility, exposed to
bribery. But considering how few, and how insignificant, the persons are who are liable to be subject to the power here in question, this is an offence which, on account of the want of temptation, there will seldom be any example of in practice. We may therefore reckon thirteen sorts of offences to which the condition of a master is exposed; viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of mastership. 2. Wrongful interception of mastership. 3. Wrongful divestment of mastership. 4. Usurpation of mastership. 5. Wrongful investment of mastership. 6. Wrongful abdication of mastership. 7. Wrongful detrectation of mastership. 8. Wrongful imposition of mastership. 9. Abuse of mastership. 10. Disturbance of mastership. 11. Breach of duty in servants. 12. Elopement of servants. 13. Servant-stealing.
XLII. As to the
power by which the condition of a master is constituted, this may be either
limited or
unlimited. When it is altogether unlimited, the condition of the servant is styled
pure slavery. But as the rules of language are as far as can be conceived from being steady on this head, the term slavery is commonly made use of wherever the limitations prescribed to the power of the master are looked upon as inconsiderable. Whenever any such limitation is prescribed, a kind of fictitious entity is thereby created, and, in quality of an incorporeal object of possession, is bestowed upon the servant: this object is of the class of those which are called
rights: and in the present case is termed, in a more particular manner, a
liberty; and sometimes a
privilege, an
immunity, or an
exemption. Now those limitations on the one hand, and these liberties on the other, may, it is evident, be as various as the acts (positive or negative) which the master may or may not have the power of obliging the servant to submit to or to perform. Correspondent then to the infinitude of these liberties, is the infinitude of the modifications which the condition of mastership (or, as it is more common to say in such a case, that of servitude) admits of. These modifications, it is evident, may, in different countries, be infinitely diversified. In different countries, therefore, the offences characterised by the above names will, if specifically considered, admit of very different descriptions. If there be a spot upon the earth so wretched as to exhibit the spectacle of pure and absolutely unlimited slavery, on that spot there will be no such thing as any abuse of mastership; which means neither more nor less than that no abuse of mastership will there be treated on the footing of an offence. As to the question, Whether any, and what, modes of servitude ought to be established or kept on foot? this is a question, the solution of which belongs to the civil branch of the art of legislation.
XLIII. Next, with regard to the offences that may concern the condition of a servant. It might seem at first sight, that a condition of this kind could not have a spark of benefit belonging to it: that it could not be attended with any other consequences than such as rendered it a mere burthen. But a burthen itself may be a benefit, in comparison of a greater burthen. Conceive a man’s situation then to be such, that he must, at any rate, be in a state of pure slavery. Still may it be material to him, and highly material, who the person is whom he has for his master. A state of slavery then, under one master, may be a beneficial state to him, in comparison with a state of slavery under another master. The condition of a servant then is exposed to the several offences to which a condition, in virtue of its being a beneficial one, is exposed.
*78 More than this, where the power of the master is limited, and the limitations annexed to it, and thence the liberties of the servant, are considerable, the servitude may even be positively eligible. For amongst those limitations may be such as are sufficient to enable the servant to possess property of his own: being capable then of possessing property of his own, he may be capable of receiving it from his master: in short, he may receive
wages, or other emoluments, from his master; and the benefit resulting from these wages may be so considerable as to outweigh the burthen of the servitude, and, by that means, render that condition more beneficial upon the whole, and more eligible, than that of one who is not in any respect under the control of any such person as a master. Accordingly, by these means the condition of the servant may be so eligible, that his entrance into it, and his continuance in it, may have been altogether the result of his own choice. That the nature of the two conditions may be the more clearly understood, it may be of use to show the sort of correspondency there is between the offences which affect the existence of the one, and those which affect the existence of the other. That this correspondency cannot but be very intimate is obvious at first sight. It is not, however, that a given offence in the former catalogue coincides with an offence of the same name in the latter catalogue: usurpation of servantship with usurpation of mastership, for example. But the case is, that an offence of one denomination in the one catalogue coincides with an offence of a different denomination in the other catalogue. Nor is the coincidence constant and certain: but liable to contingencies, as we shall see. First, then, wrongful non-investment of the condition of a servant, if it be the offence of one who should have been the master, coincides with wrongful detrectation of mastership: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it non-investment of mastership, which, provided the mastership be in the eyes of him who should have been master a beneficial thing, but not otherwise, is wrongful. 2. Wrongful interception of the condition of a servant, if it be the offence of him who should have been master, coincides with wrongful detrectation of mastership: if it be the offence of a third person, and the mastership be a beneficial thing, it involves in it wrongful interception of mastership. 3. Wrongful divestment of servantship, if it be the offence of the master, but not otherwise, coincides with wrongful abdication of mastership: if it be the offence of a stranger, it involves in it divestment of mastership, which, in as far as the mastership is a beneficial thing, is wrongful. 4. Usurpation of servantship coincides necessarily with wrongful imposition of mastership: it will be apt to involve in it wrongful divestment of mastership: but this only in the case where the usurper, previously to the usurpation, was in a state of servitude under some other master. 5. Wrongful investment of servantship (the servantship being considered as a beneficial thing) coincides with imposition of mastership; which, if in the eyes of the pretended master the mastership should chance to be a burthen, will be wrongful. 6. Wrongful abdication of servantship coincides with wrongful divestment of mastership. 7. Wrongful detrectation of servantship, with wrongful non-investment of mastership. 8. Wrongful imposition of servantship, if it be the offence of the pretended master, coincides with usurpation of mastership: if it be the offence of a stranger, it involves in it imposition of mastership, which, if in the eyes of the pretended master the mastership should be a burthen, will be wrongful. As to abuse of mastership, disturbance of mastership, breach of duty in servants, elopement of servants, and servant-stealing, these are offences which, without any change of denomination, bear equal relation to both conditions. And thus we may reckon thirteen sorts of offences to which the condition of a servant stands exposed: viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of servantship. 2. Wrongful interception of servantship. 3. Wrongful divestment of servantship. 4. Usurpation of servantship. 5. Wrongful investment of servantship. 6. Wrongful abdication of servantship. 7. Wrongful detrectation of servantship. 8. Wrongful imposition of servantship. 9. Abuse of mastership. 10. Disturbance of mastership. 11. Breach of duty in servants. 12. Elopement of servants. 13. Servant-stealing.
XLIV. We now come to the offences to which the condition of a guardian is exposed. A guardian is one who is invested with power over another, living within the compass of the same family, and called a ward; the power being to be exercised for the benefit of the ward. Now then, what are the cases in which it can be for the benefit of one man, that another, living within the compass of the same family, should exercise power over him? Consider either of the parties by himself, and suppose him, in point of understanding, to be on a level with the other, it seems evident enough that no such cases can ever exist.
*79 To the production of happiness on the part of any given person (in like manner as to the production of any other effect which is the result of human agency) three things it is necessary should concur: knowledge, inclination, and physical power. Now as there is no man who is so sure of being
inclined, on all occasions, to promote your happiness as you yourself are, so neither is there any man who upon the whole can have had so good opportunities as you must have had of
knowing what is most conducive to that purpose. For who should know so well as you do what it is that gives you pain or pleasure?
*80 Moreover, as to power, it is manifest that no superiority in this respect, on the part of a stranger, could, for a constancy, make up for so great a deficiency as he must lie under in respect of two such material points as knowledge and inclination. If then there be a case where it can be for the advantage of one man to be under the power of another, it must be on account of some palpable and very considerable deficiency, on the part of the former, in point of intellects, or (which is the same thing in other words) in point of knowledge or understanding. Now there are two cases in which such palpable deficiency is known to take place. These are, 1. Where a man’s intellect is not yet arrived at that state in which it is capable of directing his own inclination in the pursuit of happiness: this is the case of
infancy.*81 2. Where by some particular known or unknown circumstance his intellect has either never arrived at that state, or having arrived at it has fallen from it: which is the case of
insanity.
By what means then is it to be ascertained whether a man’s intellect is in that state or no? For exhibiting the quantity of sensible heat in a human body we have a very tolerable sort of instrument, the thermometer; but for exhibiting the quantity of intelligence, we have no such instrument. It is evident, therefore, that the line which separates the quantity of intelligence which
is sufficient for the purposes of self-government from that which is
not sufficient, must be, in a great measure, arbitrary. Where the insufficiency is the result of want of age, the sufficient quantity of intelligence, be it what it may, does not accrue to all at the same period of their lives. It becomes therefore necessary for legislators to cut the gordian knot, and fix upon a particular period, at which and not before, truly or not, every person whatever shall be deemed, as far as depends upon age, to be in possession of this sufficient quantity.
*82 In this case then a line is drawn which may be the same for every man, and in the description of which, such as it is, whatever persons are concerned may be certain of agreeing: the circumstance of time affording a mark by which the line in question may be traced with the utmost degree of nicety. On the other hand, where the insufficiency is the result of insanity, there is not even this resource: so that here the legislator has no other expedient than to appoint some particular person or persons to give a particular determination of the question, in every instance in which it occurs, according to his or their particular and arbitrary discretion. Arbitrary enough it must be at any rate, since the only way in which it can be exercised is by considering whether the share of intelligence possessed by the individual in question does or does not come up to the loose and indeterminate idea which persons so appointed may chance to entertain with respect to the quantity which is deemed sufficient.
XLV. The line then being drawn, or supposed to be so, it is expedient to a man who cannot, with safety to himself, be left in his own power, that he should be placed in the power of another. How long then should he remain so? Just so long as his inability is supposed to continue: that is, in the case of infancy, till he arrives at that period at which the law deems him to be of full age: in the case of insanity, till he be of sound mind and understanding. Now it is evident, that this period, in the case of infancy, may not arrive for a considerable time: and in the case of insanity, perhaps never. The duration of the power belonging to this trust must therefore, in the one case, be very considerable; in the other case, indefinite.
XLVI. The next point to consider, is what
may be the extent of it? for as to what
ought to be, that is a matter to be settled, not in a general analytical sketch, but in a particular and circumstantial dissertation. By possibility, then, this power may possess any extent that can be imagined: it may extend to any acts which, physically speaking, it may be in the power of the ward to perform himself, or be the object of if exercised by the guardian. Conceive the power, for a moment, to stand upon this footing: the condition of the ward stands now exactly upon a footing with pure slavery. Add the obligation by which the power is turned into a trust: the limits of the power are now very considerably narrowed. What then is the purport of this obligation? Of what nature is the course of conduct it prescribes? It is such a course of conduct as shall be best calculated for procuring to the ward the greatest quantity of happiness which his faculties, and the circumstances he is in, will admit of: saving always, in the first place, the regard which the guardian is permitted to show to his own happiness; and, in the second place, that which he is obliged, as well as permitted, to show to that of other men. This is, in fact, no other than that course of conduct which the ward, did he but know how, ought, in point of
prudence, to maintain of himself: so that the business of the former is to govern the latter precisely in the manner in which this latter ought to govern himself. Now to instruct each individual in what manner to govern his own conduct in the details of life, is the particular business of private ethics: to instruct individuals in what manner to govern the conduct of those whose happiness, during nonage, is committed to their charge, is the business of the art of private education. The details, therefore, of the rules to be given for that purpose, any more than the acts which are capable of being committed in violation of those rules, belong not to the art of legislation: since, as will be seen more particularly hereafter,
*83 such details could not, with any chance of advantage, be provided for by the legislator. Some general outlines might indeed be drawn by his authority: and, in point of fact, some are in every civilized state. But such regulations, it is evident, must be liable to great variation: in the first place, according to the infinite diversity of civil conditions which a man may stand invested with in any given state: in the next place, according to the diversity of local circumstances that may influence the nature of the conditions which may chance to be established in different states. On this account, the offences which would be constituted by such regulations could not be comprised under any concise and settled denominations, capable of a permanent and extensive application. No place, therefore, can be allotted to them here.
XLVII. By what has been said, we are the better prepared for taking an account of the offences to which the condition in question stands exposed. Guardianship being a private trust, is of course exposed to those offences, and no others, by which a private trust is liable to be affected. Some of them, however, on account of the special quality of the trust, will admit of some further particularity of description. In the first place, breach of this species of trust may be termed
mismanagement of guardianship: in the second place, of whatever nature the duties are which are capable of being annexed to this condition, it must often happen, that in order to fulfil them, it is necessary the guardian should be at a certain particular place. Mismanagement of guardianship, when it consists in the not being, on the occasion in question, at the place in question, may be termed
desertion of guardianship. Thirdly, It is manifest enough, that the object which the guardian ought to propose to himself, in the exercise of the powers to which those duties are annexed, is to procure for the ward the greatest quantity of happiness which can be procured for him, consistently with the regard which is due to the other interests that have been mentioned: for this is the object which the ward would have proposed to himself, and might and ought to have been allowed to propose to himself, had he been capable of governing his own conduct. Now, in order to procure this happiness, it is necessary that he should possess a certain power over the objects on the use of which such happiness depends. These objects are either the person of the ward himself, or other objects that are extraneous to him. These other objects are either things or persons. As to
things, then, objects of this class, insofar as a man’s happiness depends upon the use of them, are styled his
property. The case is the same with the services of any
persons over whom he may happen to possess a beneficial power, or to whose services he may happen to possess a beneficial right. Now when property of any kind, which is in trust, suffers by the delinquency of him with whom it is in trust, such offence, of whatever nature it is in other respects, may be styled
dissipation in breach of trust: and if it be attended with a profit to the trustee, it may be styled
peculation.*84 Fourthly, For one person to exercise a power of any kind over another, it is necessary that the latter should either perform certain acts, upon being commanded so to do by the former, or at least should suffer certain acts to be exercised upon himself. In this respect a ward must stand upon the footing of a servant: and the condition of a ward must, in this respect, stand exposed to the same offences to which that of a servant stands exposed: that is, on the part of a stranger, to
disturbance, which, in particular circumstances, will amount to
theft: on the part of the ward, to
breach of duty: which, in particular circumstances, may be effected by
elopement. Fifthly, There does not seem to be any offence concerning guardianship that corresponds to
abuse of trust: I mean in the sense to which the last-mentioned denomination has been here confined.
*85 The reason is, that guardianship, being a trust of a private nature, does not, as such, confer upon the trustee any power, either over the persons or over the property of any party, other than the
beneficiary himself. If by accident it confers on the trustee a power over any persons whose services constitute a part of the property of the beneficiary, the trustee becomes thereby, in certain respects, the master of such servants.
*86 Sixthly, Bribery also is a sort of offence to which, in this case, there is not commonly much temptation. It is an offence, however, which by possibility is capable of taking this direction: and must therefore be aggregated to the number of the offences to which the condition of a guardian stands exposed. And thus we have in all seventeen of these offences: viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of guardianship. 2. Wrongful interception of guardianship. 3. Wrongful divestment of guardianship. 4. Usurpation of guardianship. 5. Wrongful investment of guardianship. 6. Wrongful abdication of guardianship. 7. Detrectation of guardianship. 8. Wrongful imposition of guardianship. 9. Mismanagement of guardianship. 10. Desertion of guardianship. 11. Dissipation in prejudice of wardship. 12. Peculation in prejudice of wardship. 13. Disturbance of guardianship. 14. Breach of duty to guardians. 15. Elopement from guardians. 16. Ward-stealing. 17. Bribery in prejudice of wardship.
XLVIII. Next, with regard to offences to which the condition of wardship is exposed. Those which first affect the existence of the condition itself are as follows: 1. Wrongful non-investment of the condition of a ward. This, if it be the offence of one who should have been guardian, coincides with wrongful detrectation of guardianship: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it non-investment of guardianship, which, provided the guardianship is, in the eyes of him who should have been guardian, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 2. Wrongful interception of wardship. This, if it be the offence of him who should have been guardian, coincides with wrongful detrectation of guardianship: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it interception of guardianship, which, provided the guardianship is, in the eyes of him who should have been guardian, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 3. Wrongful divestment of wardship. This, if it be the offence of the guardian, but not otherwise, coincides with wrongful abdication of guardianship: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it divestment of guardianship, which, if the guardianship is, in the eyes of the guardian, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 4. Usurpation of the condition of a ward: an offence not very likely to be committed. This coincides at any rate with wrongful imposition of guardianship; and if the usurper were already under the guardianship of another guardian, it will involve in it wrongful divestment of such guardianship.
*87 5. Wrongful investment of wardship (the wardship being considered as a beneficial thing): this coincides with imposition of guardianship, which, if in the eyes of the pretended guardian the guardianship should be a burthen, will be wrongful. 6. Wrongful abdication of wardship. This coincides with wrongful divestment of guardianship. 7. Wrongful detrectation of wardship. This coincides with wrongful interception of guardianship. 8. Wrongful imposition of wardship. This, if the offender be the pretended guardian, coincides with usurpation of guardianship: if a stranger, it involves in it wrongful imposition of guardianship. As to such of the offences relative to this condition, as concern the consequences of it while subsisting, they are of such a nature that, without any change of denomination, they belong equally to the condition of a guardian and that of a ward. We may therefore reckon seventeen sorts of offences relative to the condition of a ward: 1. Wrongful non-investment of wardship. 2. Wrongful interception of wardship. 3. Wrongful divestment of wardship. 4. Usurpation of wardship. 5. Wrongful investment of wardship. 6. Wrongful abdication of wardship. 7. Wrongful detrectation of wardship. 8. Wrongful imposition of wardship. 9. Mismanagement of guardianship. 10. Desertion of guardianship. 11. Dissipation in prejudice of wardship. 12. Peculation in prejudice of wardship. 13. Disturbance of guardianship. 14. Breach of duty to guardians. 15. Elopement from guardians. 16. Ward-stealing. 17. Bribery in prejudice of wardship.
XLIX. We come now to the offences to which the condition of a parent stands exposed: and first, with regard to those by which the very existence of the condition is affected. On this occasion, in order to see the more clearly into the subject, it will be necessary to distinguish between the natural relationship, and the legal relationship which is superinduced as it were upon the natural one. The natural one being constituted by a particular event, which, either on account of its being already past, or on some other account, is equally out of the power of the law neither is, nor can be made, the subject of an offence.
Is a man your father? It is not any offence of mine that can make you not his son. Is he
not your father? It is not any offence of mine that can render him so. But although he does in fact bear that relation to you, I, by an offence of mine, may perhaps so manage matters, that he shall not be
thought to bear it: which, with respect to any legal advantages which either he or you could derive from such relationship, will be the same thing as if he did not. In the capacity of a witness, I may cause the judges to believe that he is not your father, and to decree accordingly: or, in the capacity of a judge, I may myself decree him not to be your father. Leaving then the purely natural relationship as an object equally out of the reach of justice and injustice, the legal condition, it is evident, will stand exposed to the same offences, neither more nor less, as every other condition, that is capable of being either beneficial or burthensome, stands exposed to. Next, with regard to the exercise of the functions belonging to this condition, considered as still subsisting. In parentality there must be two persons concerned, the father and the mother. The condition of a parent includes, therefore, two conditions; that of a father, and that of a mother, with respect to such or such a child. Now it is evident, that between these two parties, whatever beneficiary powers, and other rights, as also whatever obligations, are annexed to the condition of a parent, may be shared in any proportions that can be imagined. But if in these several objects of legal creation, each of these two parties have severally a share, and if the interests of all these parties are in any degree provided for, it is evident that each of the parents will stand, with relation to the child, in two several capacities: that of a master, and that of a guardian. The condition of a parent then, in as far as it is the work of law, may be considered as a complex condition, compounded of that of a guardian, and that of a master. To the parent then, in quality of guardian, results a set of duties, involving, as necessary to the discharge of them, certain powers: to the child, in the character of a ward, a set of rights corresponding to the parent’s duties, and a set of duties corresponding to his powers. To the parent again, in quality of master, a set of beneficiary powers, without any other necessary limitation (so long as they last) than what is annexed to them by the duties incumbent on him in quality of a guardian: to the child, in the character of a servant, a set of duties corresponding to the parent’s beneficiary powers, and without any other necessary limitation (so long as they last) than what is annexed to them by the rights which belong to the child in his capacity of ward. The condition of a parent will therefore be exposed to all the offences to which either that of a guardian or that of a master are exposed: and, as each of the parents will partake, more or less, of both those characters, the offences to which the two conditions are exposed may be nominally, as they will be substantially, the same. Taking them then all together, the offences to which the condition of a parent is exposed will stand as follows: 1. Wrongful non-investment of parentality.
*88 2. Wrongful interception of parentality. 3. Wrongful divestment of parentality. 4. Usurpation of parentality. 5. Wrongful investment of parentality. 6. Wrongful abdication of parentality. 7. Wrongful detrectation of parentality. 8. Wrongful imposition of parentality. 9. Mismanagement of parental guardianship. 10. Desertion of parental guardianship. 11. Dissipation in prejudice of filial wardship. 12. Peculation in prejudice of filial wardship. 13. Abuse of parental powers. 14. Disturbance of parental guardianship. 15. Breach of duty to parents. 16. Elopement from parents. 17. Child-stealing. 18. Bribery in prejudice of filial wardship.
L. Next with regard to the offences to which the
filial condition,
*89 the condition of a son or daughter, stands exposed. The principles to be pursued in the investigation of offences of this description have already been sufficiently developed. It will be sufficient, therefore, to enumerate them without further discussion. The only peculiarities by which offences relative to the condition in question stand distinguished from the offences relative to all the preceding conditions, depend upon this one circumstance; viz. that it is certain every one must have had a father and a mother: at the same time that it is not certain that every one must have had a master, a servant, a guardian, or a ward. It will be observed all along, that where a person, from whom, if alive, the benefit would be taken, or on whom the burthen would be imposed, be dead, so much of the mischief is extinct along with the object of the offence. There still, however, remains so much of the mischief as depends upon the advantage or disadvantage which might accrue to persons related, or supposed to be related, in the several remoter degrees, to him in question. The catalogue then of these offences stands as follows: 1. Wrongful non-investment of filiation. This, if it be the offence of him or her who should have been recognized as the parent, coincides with wrongful detrectation of parentality: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it non-investment of parentality, which, provided the parentality is, in the eyes of him or her who should have been recognised as the parent, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 2. Wrongful interception of filiation. This, if it be the offence of him or her who should have been recognised as the parent, coincides with wrongful detrectation of parentality: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it interception of parentality, which, provided the parentality is, in the eyes of him or her who should have been recognized as parent, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 3. Wrongful divestment of filiation. This, if it be the offence of him or her who should be recognized as parent, coincides with wrongful abdication of parentality: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it divestment of parentality; to wit, of paternity, or of maternity, or of both; which, if the parentality is, in the eyes of him or her who should be recognized as parent, a desirable thing, are respectively wrongful. 4. Usurpation of filiation. This coincides with wrongful imposition of parentality; to wit, either of paternity, or of maternity, or of both: and necessarily involves in it divestment of parentality, which, if the parentality thus divested were, in the eyes of him or her who are thus divested of it, a desirable thing, is wrongful. 5. Wrongful investment of filiation: (the filiation being considered as a beneficial thing.) This coincides with imposition of parentality, which, if in the eyes of the pretended father or mother the parentality should be an undesirable thing, will be wrongful. 6. Wrongful abdication of filiation. This necessarily coincides with wrongful divestment of parentality; it also is apt to involve in it wrongful imposition of parentality; though not necessarily either to the advantage or to the prejudice of any certain person. For if a man, supposed at first to be your son, appears afterwards not to be yours, it is certain indeed that he is the son of some other man, but it may not appear who that other man is. 7. Wrongful detrectation of filiation. This coincides with wrongful noninvestment or wrongful interception of parentality. 8. Wrongful imposition of filiation. This, if it be the offence of the pretended parent, coincides necessarily with usurpation of parentality: if it be the offence of a third person, it necessarily involves imposition of parentality; as also divestment of parentality: either or both of which, according to the circumstance above mentioned, may or may not be wrongful. 9. Mismanagement of parental guardianship. 10. Desertion of parental guardianship. 11. Dissipation in prejudice of filial wardship. 12. Peculation in prejudice of filial wardship. 13. Abuse of parental power. 14. Disturbance of parental guardianship. 15. Breach of duty to parents. 16. Elopement from parents. 17. Child-stealing. 18. Bribery in prejudice of parental guardianship.
LI. We shall now be able to apply ourselves with some advantage to the examination of the several offences to which the marital condition, or condition of a husband, stands exposed. A husband is a man, between whom and a certain woman, who in this case is called his wife, there subsists a legal obligation for the purpose of their living together, and in particular for the purpose of a sexual intercourse to be carried on between them. This obligation will naturally be considered in four points of view: 1. In respect of its commencement. 2. In respect of the placing of it. 3. In respect of the nature of it. 4. In respect of its duration. First then, it is evident, that in point of possibility, one method of commencement is as conceivable as another: the time of its commencement might have been marked by one sort of event (by one sort of
signal, as it may here be called) as well as by another. But in practice the signal has usually been, as in point of utility it ought constantly to be, a contract entered into by the parties: that is, a set of signs, pitched upon by the law, as expressive of their
mutual consent, to take upon them this condition. Secondly, and thirdly, with regard to the placing of the obligations which are the result of the contract, it is evident that they must rest either solely on one side, or mutually on both. On the first supposition, the condition is not to be distinguished from pure slavery. In this case, either the wife must be the slave of the husband, or the husband of the wife. The first of these suppositions has perhaps never been exemplified; the opposing influence of physical causes being too universal to have ever been surmounted: the latter seems to have been exemplified but too often; perhaps among the first Romans; at any rate, in many barbarous nations. Thirdly, with regard to the nature of the obligations. If they are not suffered to rest all on one side, certain rights are thereby given to the other. There must, therefore, be rights on both sides. Now, where there are mutual rights possessed by two persons, as against each other, either there are powers annexed to those rights, or not. But the persons in question are, by the supposition, to live together: in which case we have shown,
*90 that it is not only expedient, but in a manner necessary, that on one side there should be powers. Now it is only on one side that powers can be: for suppose them on both sides, and they destroy one another. The question is then, In which of the parties these powers shall be lodged? we have shown, that on the principle of utility they ought to be lodged in the husband. The powers then which subsist being lodged in the husband, the next question is, Shall the interest of one party only, or of both, be consulted in the exercise of them? it is evident, that on the principle of utility the interests of both ought alike to be consulted: since in two persons taken together, more happiness is producible than in one. This being the case, it is manifest, that the legal relation which the husband will bear to the wife will be a complex one: compounded of that of master and that of guardian.
LII. The offences then to which the condition of a husband of will be exposed, will be the sum of those to which the two conditions of master and guardian are exposed. Thus far the condition of a husband, with respect to the general outlines of it, stands upon the same footing as that of a parent. But there are certain reciprocal services, which being the main subject of the matrimonial contract, constitute the essence of the two matrimonial relations, and which neither a master nor guardian, as such, nor a parent, at any rate, have usually been permitted to receive. These must of course have been distinguished from the indiscriminate train of services at large which the husband in his character of master is empowered to exact, and of those which in his character of guardian he is bound to render. Being thus distinguished, the offences relative to the two conditions have, in many instances, in as far as they have reference to these peculiar services, acquired particular denominations. In the first place, with regard to the contract, from the celebration of which the legal condition dates its existence. It is obvious that in point of possibility, this contract might, on the part of either sex, subsist with respect to several persons of the other sex at the same time: the husband might have any number of wives: the wife might have any number of husbands: the husband might enter into the contract with a number of wives at the same time: or, if with only one at a time, he might reserve to himself a right of engaging in a similar contract with any number, or with only such or such a number of other women afterwards, during the continuance of each former contract. This latter accordingly is the footing upon which, as is well known, marriage is and has been established in many extensive countries: particularly in all those which profess the Mahometan religion. In point of possibility, it is evident that the like liberty might be reserved on the part of the wife: though in point of practice no examples of such an arrangement seem ever to have occurred. Which of all these arrangements is in point of utility the most expedient, is a question which would require too much discussion to answer in the course of an analytical process like the present, and which belongs indeed to the civil branch of legislation, rather than to the penal.
*91 In Christian countries, the solemnization of any such contract is made to exclude the solemnization of any subsequent one during the continuance of a former: and the solemnization of any such subsequent contract is accordingly treated as an offence, under the name of
Polygamy. Polygamy then is at any rate, on the part of the man, a particular modification of that offence which may be styled usurpation of the condition of a husband. As to its other effects, they will be different, according as it was the man only, or the woman only, or both, that were in a state of matrimony at the time of the commission of the offence. If the man only, then his offence involves in it
pro tanto that of wrongful divestment of the condition of a wife, in prejudice of his prior wife.
*92 If the woman only, then it involves in it
pro tanto that of wrongful divestment of the condition of a husband, in prejudice of her prior husband. If both were already married, it of course involves both the wrongful divestments which have just been mentioned. And on the other hand also, the converse of all this may be observed with regard to polygamy on the part of the woman. Secondly, As the engaging not to enter into any subsequent engagement of the like kind during the continuance of the first, is one of the conditions on which the law lends its sanction to the first; so another is, the inserting as one of the articles of this engagement an undertaking not to render to, or accept from, any other person the services which form the characteristic object of it: the rendering or acceptance of any such services is accordingly treated as an offence, under the name of
adultery: under which name is also comprised the offence of the stranger, who, in the commission of the above offence, is the necessary accomplice. Thirdly, Disturbing either of the parties to this engagement, in the possession of these characteristic services, may, in like manner, be distinguished from the offence of disturbing them in the enjoyment of the miscellaneous advantages derivable from the same condition; and on whichever side the blame rests, whether that of the party, or that of a third person, may be termed
wrongful withholding of connubial services. And thus we have one-and-twenty sorts of offences to which, as the law stands at present in Christian countries, the condition of a husband stands exposed: viz. 1. Wrongful non-investment of the condition of a husband. 2. Wrongful interception of the condition of a husband. 3. Wrongful divestment of the condition of a husband. 4. Usurpation of the condition of a husband. 5. Polygamy. 6. Wrongful investment of the condition of a husband. 7. Wrongful abdication of the condition of a husband. 8. Wrongful detrectation of the condition of a husband. 9. Wrongful imposition of the condition of a husband. 10. Mismanagement of marital guardianship. 11. Desertion of marital guardianship. 12. Dissipation in prejudice of matrimonial wardship. 13. Peculation in prejudice of matrimonial wardship. 14. Abuse of marital power. 15. Disturbance of marital guardianship. 16. Wrongful withholding of connubial services. 17. Adultery. 18. Breach of duty to husbands. 19. Elopement from husbands. 20. Wife-stealing. 21. Bribery in prejudice of marital guardianship.
*93
LIII. Next with regard to the offences to which the condition of a wife stands exposed. From the patterns that have been exhibited already, the coincidences and associations that take place between the offences that concern the existence of this condition and those which concern the existence of the condition of a husband, may easily enough be apprehended without farther repetitions. The catalogue of those now under consideration will be precisely the same in every article as the catalogue last exhibited.
LIV. Thus much for the several sorts of offences relative to the several sorts of domestic conditions: those which are constituted by such natural relations as are contiguous being included. There remain those which are uncontiguous: of which, after so much as has been said of the others, it will naturally be expected that some notice should be taken. These, however, do not afford any of that matter which is necessary to constitute a condition. In point of fact, no power seems ever to be annexed to any of them. A grandfather, perhaps, may be called by the law to take upon him the guardianship of his orphan grandson: but then the power he has belongs to him not as grandfather, but as guardian. In point of possibility, indeed, power might be annexed to these relations, just as it might to any other. But still no new sort of domestic condition would result from it: since it has been shown that there can be no others, that, being constituted by power, shall be distinct from those which have been already mentioned. Such as they are, however, they have this in common with the before-mentioned relations, that they are capable of importing either benefit or burthen: they therefore stand exposed to the several offences whereby those or any other relations are liable to be affected in point of existence. It might be expected, therefore, that in virtue of these offences, they should be added to the list of the relations which are liable to be objects of delinquency. But the fact is, that they already stand included in it: and although not expressly named, yet as effectually as if they were. On the one hand, it is only by affecting such or such a contiguous relation that any offence affecting uncontiguous relations can take place. On the other hand, neither can any offence affecting the existence of the contiguous relations be committed, without affecting the existence of an indefinite multitude of such as are uncontiguous. A false witness comes, and causes it to be believed that you are the son of a woman, who, in truth, is not your mother. What follows? An endless tribe of other false persuasions—that you are the grandson of the father and of the mother of this supposed mother: that you are the son of some husband of hers, or, at least, of some man with whom she has cohabited: the grandson of his father and his mother; and so on: the brother of their other children, if they have any: the brother-in-law of the husbands and wives of those children, if married: the uncle of the children of those children: and so on.—On the other hand, that you are not the son of your real mother, nor of your real father: that you are not the grandson of either of your real grandfathers or grandmothers; and so on without end: all which persuasions result from, and are included in, the one original false persuasion of your being the son of this your pretended mother.
It should seem, therefore, at first sight, that none of the offences against these uncontiguous relations could ever come expressly into question: for by the same rule that one ought, so it might seem ought a thousand others: the offences against the uncontiguous being merged as it were in those which affect the contiguous relations. So far, however, is this from being the case, that in speaking of an offence of this stamp, it is not uncommon to hear a great deal said of this or that uncontiguous relationship which it affects, at the same time that no notice at all shall be taken of any of those which are contiguous. How happens this? Because, to the uncontiguous relation are annexed perhaps certain remarkable advantages or disadvantages, while to all the intermediate relations none shall be annexed which are in comparison worth noticing. Suppose Antony or Lepidus to have contested the relationship of Octavius (afterwards Augustus) to Caius Julius Cæsar. How could it have been done? It could only have been by contesting, either Octavius’s being the son of Atia, or Atia’s being the daughter of Julia, or Julia’s being the daughter of Lucius Julius Cæsar, or Lucius Julius Cæsar’s being the father of Caius. But to have been the son of Atia, or the grandson of Julia, or the great grandson of Lucius Julius Cæsar, was, in comparison, of small importance. Those intervening relationships were, comparatively speaking, of no other use to him than in virtue of their being so many necessary links in the genealogical chain which connected him with the sovereign of the empire.
As to the advantages and disadvantages which may happen to be annexed to any of those uncontiguous relationships, we have seen already that no powers over the correlative person, nor any corresponding obligations, are of the number. Of what nature then can they be? They are, in truth, no other than what are the result either of local and accidental institutions, or of some spontaneous bias that has been taken by the moral sanction. It would, therefore, be to little purpose to attempt tracing them out
a priori by any exhaustive process: all that can be done is, to pick up and lay together some of the principal articles in each catalogue by way of specimen. The advantages which a given relationship is apt to impart, seem to be referable chiefly to the following heads: 1. Chance of succession to the property, or a part of the property, of the correlative person. 2. Chance of pecuniary support, to be yielded by the correlative person, either by appointment of law, or by spontaneous donation. 3. Accession of legal rank; including any legal privileges which may happen to be annexed to it: such as capacity of holding such and such beneficial offices; exemption from such and such burthensome obligations; for instance, paying taxes, serving burthensome offices, &c. &c. 4. Accession of rank by courtesy; including the sort of reputation which is customarily and spontaneously annexed to distinguished birth and family alliance: whereon may depend the chance of advancement in the way of marriage, or in a thousand other ways less obvious. The disadvantages which a given relation is liable to impart, seem to be referable chiefly to the following heads: 1. Chance of being obliged, either by law, or by force of the moral sanction, to yield pecuniary support to the correlative party. 2. Loss of legal rank: including the legal disabilities, as well as the burthensome obligations, which the law is apt to annex, sometimes with injustice enough, to the lower stations. 3. Loss of rank by courtesy: including the loss of the advantages annexed by custom to such rank. 4. Incapacity of contracting matrimony with the correlative person, where the supposed consanguinity or affinity lies within the prohibited degrees.
*94
LV. We come now to civil conditions: these, it may well be imagined, may be infinitely various: as various as the acts which a man may be either commanded or allowed, whether for his own benefit, or that of others, to abstain from or to perform. As many different denominations as there are of persons distinguished with a view to such commands and allowances (those denominations only excepted which relate to the conditions above spoken of under the name of domestic ones) so many civil conditions one might enumerate. Means however, more or less explicit, may be found out of circumscribing their infinitude.
What the materials are, if so they may be called, of which conditions, or any other kind of legal possession, can be made up, we have already seen: beneficial powers, fiduciary powers, beneficial rights, fiduciary rights, relative duties, absolute duties. But as many conditions as import a power or right of the fiduciary kind, as possessed by the person whose condition is in question, belong to the head of trusts. The catalogue of the offences to which these conditions are exposed, coincides therefore exactly with the catalogue of offences against trust: under which head they have been considered in a general point of view under the head of offences against trust: and such of them as are of a domestic nature, in a more particular manner in the character of offences against the several domestic conditions. Conditions constituted by such duties of the relative kind, as have for their counterparts trusts constituted by fiduciary powers, as well as rights on the side of the correlative party, and those of a private nature, have also been already discussed under the appellation of domestic conditions. The same observation may be applied to the conditions constituted by such powers of the beneficial kind over persons as are of a private nature: as also to the subordinate correlative conditions constituted by the duties corresponding to those rights and powers. As to absolute duties, there is no instance of a condition thus created, of which the institution is upon the principle of utility to be justified; unless the several religious conditions of the monastic kind should be allowed of as examples. There remain, as the only materials out of which the conditions which yet remain to be considered can be composed, conditions constituted by beneficial powers over things; conditions constituted by beneficial rights to things (that is, rights to powers over things) or by rights to those rights, and so on; conditions constituted by rights to services; and conditions constituted by the duties corresponding to those respective rights. Out of these are to be taken those of which the materials are the ingredients of the several modifications of property, the several conditions of proprietorship. These are the conditions, if such for a moment they may be styled, which having but here and there any specific names, are not commonly considered on the footing of conditions: so that the acts which, if such conditions were recognised might be considered as offences against those conditions, are not wont to be considered in any other light than that of offences against property.
Now the case is, as hath been already intimated,
*95 that of these civil conditions, those which are wont to be considered under that name, are not distinguished by any uniform and explicit line from those of which the materials are wont to be carried to the head of property: a set of rights shall, in one instance, be considered as constituting an article of property rather than a condition: while, in another instance, a set of rights of the same stamp is considered as constituting rather a condition than an article of property. This will probably be found to be the case in all languages: and the usage is different again in one language from what it is in another. From these causes it seems to be impracticable to subject the class of civil conditions to any exhaustive method: so that for making a complete collection of them there seems to be no other expedient than that of searching the language through for them, and taking them as they come. To exemplify this observation, it may be of use to lay open the structure as it were of two or three of the principal sorts or classes of conditions, comparing them with two or three articles of property which appear to be nearly of the same complexion: by this means the nature and generation, if one may so call it, of both these classes of ideal objects may be the more clearly understood.
The several sorts of civil conditions that are not fiduciary may all, or at least the greater part of them, be comprehended under the head of
rank, or that of
profession; the latter word being taken in its most extensive sense, so as to include not only what are called the liberal professions, but those also which are exercised by the several sorts of traders, artists, manufacturers, and other persons of whatsoever station, who are in the way of making a profit by their labour. Among ranks then, as well as professions, let us, for the sake of perspicuity, take for examples such articles as stand the clearest from any mixture of either fiduciary or beneficial power. The rank of knighthood is constituted, how? by prohibiting all other persons from performing certain acts, the performance of which is the symbol of the order, at the same time that the knight in question, and his companions, are permitted: for instance, to wear a ribbon of a certain colour in a certain manner: to call himself by a certain title: to use an armorial seal with a certain mark on it. By laying all persons but the knight under this prohibition, the law subjects them to a set of duties: and since from the discharge of these duties a benefit results to the person in whose favour they are created, to wit, the benefit of enjoying such a share of extraordinary reputation and respect as men are wont to yield to a person thus distinguished, to discharge them is to render him a service: and the duty being a duty of the negative class, a duty consisting in the performance of certain acts of the negative kind,
*96 the service is what may be called
a service of forbearance. It appears then, that to generate this condition there must be two sorts of services: that which is the immediate cause of it, a service of the negative kind, to be rendered by the community at large: that which is the cause again of this service, a service of the positive kind, to be rendered by the law.
The condition of a professional man stands upon a narrower footing. To constitute this condition there needs nothing more than a permission given him on the part of the legislator to perform those acts, in the performance of which consists the exercise of his profession: to give or sell his advice or assistance in matters of law or physic: to give or sell his services as employed in the executing or overseeing of a manufacture or piece of work of such or such a kind: to sell a commodity of such or such a sort. Here then we see there is but one sort of service requisite; a service which may be merely of the negative kind, to be rendered by the law: the service of permitting him to exercise his profession: a service which, if there has been no prohibition laid on before, is rendered by simply forbearing to prohibit him.
Now the ideal objects, which in the cases above specified are said to be conferred upon a man by the services that are respectively in question, are in both cases not articles of property but conditions. By such a behaviour on the part of the law, as shall be the reverse of that whereby they were respectively produced, a man may be made to forfeit them: and what he is then said to forfeit is in neither case his property; but in one case, his rank or dignity: in the other case, his trade or his profession: and in both cases, his condition.
Other cases there are again in which the law, by a process of the same sort with that by which it constituted the former of the two above-mentioned conditions, confers on him an ideal object, which the laws of language have placed under the head of property. The law permits a man to sell books: that is, all sorts of books in general. Thus far all that it has done is to invest him with a condition: and this condition he would equally possess, although everybody else in the world were to sell books likewise. Let the law now take an active part in his favour, and prohibit all other persons from selling books of a certain description, he remaining at liberty to sell them as before. It therefore confers on him a sort of exclusive privilege or monopoly, which is called a
copy-right. But by investing him with this right, it is not said to invest him with any new sort of condition: what it invests him with is spoken of as an article of property; to wit, of that sort of property which is termed incorporeal:
*97 and so on in the case of an engraving, a mechanical engine, a medicine; or, in short, of a saleable article of any other sort. Yet when it gave him an exclusive right of wearing a particular sort of ribbon, the object which it was then considered as conferring on him was not an article of property but a condition.
By forbearing to subject you to certain disadvantages, to which it subjects an alien, the law confers on you the condition of a natural-born subject: by subjecting him to them, it imposes on him the condition of an alien: by conferring on you certain privileges or rights, which it denies to a
roturier, the law confers on you the condition of a
gentilhomme; by forbearing to confer on him those privileges, it imposes on him the condition of a
roturier.
*98 The rights, out of which the two advantageous conditions here exemplified are both of them as it were composed, have for their counterpart a sort of services of forbearance, rendered, as we have seen, not by private individuals, but by the law itself. As to the duties which it creates in rendering you these services, they are to be considered as duties imposed by the legislator on the ministers of justice.
It may be observed, with regard to the greater part of the conditions here comprised under the general appellation of
civil, that the relations corresponding to those by which they are respectively constituted, are not provided with appellatives. The relation which has a name, is that which is borne by the party favoured to the party bound: that which is borne by the party bound to the party favoured has not any. This is a circumstance that may help to distinguish them from those conditions which we have termed domestic. In the domestic conditions, if on the one side the party
to whom the power is given is called a master; on the other side, the party
over whom that power is given, the party who is the object of that power, is termed a servant. In the civil conditions this is not the case. On the one side, a man, in virtue of certain services of forbearance, which the rest of the community are bound to render him, is denominated a knight of such or such an order: but on the other side, these services do not bestow any particular denomination on the persons from whom such services are due. Another man, in virtue of the legislator’s rendering that sort of negative service which consists in the not prohibiting him from exercising a trade, invests him at his option with the condition of a trader: it accordingly denominates him a farmer, a baker, a weaver, and so on: but the ministers of the law do not, in virtue of their rendering the man this sort of negative service, acquire for themselves any particular name. Suppose even that the trade you have the right of exercising happens to be the object of a monopoly, and that the legislator, besides rendering you himself those services which you derive from the permission he bestows on you, obliges other persons to render you those farther services which you receive from their forbearing to follow the same trade; yet neither do they, in virtue of their being thus bound, acquire any particular name.
After what has been said of the nature of the several sorts of civil conditions that have names, the offences to which they are exposed may, without much difficulty, be imagined. Taken by itself, every condition which is thus constituted by a permission granted to the possessor, is of course of a beneficial nature: it is, therefore, exposed to all those offences to which the possession of a benefit is exposed. But either on account of a man’s being obliged to persevere when once engaged in it, or on account of such other obligations as may stand annexed to the possession of it, or on account of the comparative degree of disrepute which may stand annexed to it by the moral sanction, it may by accident be a burthen: it is on this account liable to stand exposed to the offences to which, as hath been seen, every thing that partakes of the nature of a burthen stands exposed. As to any offences which may concern the exercise of the functions belonging to it, if it happens to have any duties annexed to it, such as those, for instance, which are constituted by regulations touching the exercise of a trade, it will stand exposed to so many breaches of duty; and lastly, whatsoever are the functions belonging to it, it will stand exposed at any rate to
disturbance.
In the forming however of the catalogue of these offences, exactness is of the less consequence, inasmuch as an act, if it should happen not to be comprised in this catalogue, and yet is in any respect of a pernicious nature, will be sure to be found in some other division of the system of offences: if a baker sells bad bread for the price of good, it is a kind of fraud upon the buyer; and perhaps an injury of the simple corporal kind done to the health of an individual, or a neighbourhood: if a clothier sells bad cloth for good at home, it is a fraud; if to foreigners abroad, it may, over and above the fraud put upon the foreign purchaser, have pernicious effects perhaps in the prosperity of the trade at home, and become thereby an offence against the national wealth. So again with regard to
disturbance: if a man be disturbed in the exercise of his trade, the offence will probably be a wrongful
interception of the profit he might be presumed to have been in a way to make by it: and were it even to appear in any case that a man exercised a trade, or what is less unlikely, a liberal profession, without having profit in his view, the offence will still be reducible to the head of
simple injurious restrainment, or
simple injurious compulsion.
§ 4.
Advantages of the present method.
LVI. A few words, for the purpose of giving a general view of the method of division here pursued, and of the advantages which it possesses, may have their use. The whole system of offences, we may observe, is branched out into five classes. In the three first, the subordinate divisions are taken from the same source; viz. from the consideration of the different points, in respect whereof the interest of an individual is exposed to suffer. By this uniformity, a considerable degree of light seems to be thrown upon the whole system; particularly upon the offences that come under the third class: objects which have never hitherto been brought into any sort of order. With regard to the fourth class, in settling the precedence between its several subordinate divisions, it seemed most natural and satisfactory to place those first, the connection whereof with the welfare of individuals seemed most obvious and immediate. The mischievous effects of those offences, which tend in an immediate way to deprive individuals of the protection provided for them against the attacks of one another, and of those which tend to bring down upon them the attacks of foreign assailants, seem alike obvious and palpable. The mischievous quality of such as tend to weaken the force that is provided to combat those attacks, but particularly the latter, though evident enough, is one link farther off in the chain of causes and effects. The ill effects of such offences as are of disservice only by diminishing the particular fund from whence that force is to be extracted, such effects, I say, though indisputable, are still more distant and out of sight. The same thing may be observed with regard to such as are mischievous only by affecting the universal fund. Offences against the sovereignty in general would not be mischievous, if offences of the several descriptions preceding were not mischievous. Nor in a temporal view are offences against religion mischievous, except in as far as, by removing, or weakening, or misapplying one of the three great incentives to virtue, and checks to vice, they tend to open the door to the several mischiefs, which it is the nature of all those other offences to produce. As to the fifth class, this, as hath already been observed, exhibits, at first view, an irregularity, which however seems to be unavoidable. But this irregularity is presently corrected, when the analysis returns back, as it does after a step or two, into the path from which the tyranny of language had forced it a while to deviate.
It was necessary that it should have two purposes in view: the one, to exhibit, upon a scale more or less minute, a systematical enumeration of the several possible modifications of delinquency, denominated or undenominated; the other, to find places in the list for such names of offences as were in current use: for the first purpose, nature was to set the law; for the other, custom. Had the nature of the things themselves been the only guide, every such difference in the manner of perpetration, and such only, should have served as a ground for a different denomination, as was attended with a difference in point of effect. This however of itself would never have been sufficient; for as on one hand the new language, which it would have been necessary to invent, would have been uncouth, and in a manner unintelligible: so on the other hand the names, which were before in current use, and which, in spite of all systems, good or bad, must have remained in current use, would have continued unexplained. To have adhered exclusively to the current language, would have been as bad on the other side; for in that case the catalogue of offences, when compared to that of the mischiefs that are capable of being produced, would have been altogether broken and uncomplete.
To reconcile these two objects, in as far as they seemed to be reconcilable, the following course has therefore been pursued. The logical whole, constituted by the sum total of possible offences, has been bisected in as many different directions as were necessary, and the process in each direction carried down to that stage at which the particular ideas thus divided found names in current use in readiness to receive them. At that period I have stopped; leaving any minuter distinctions to be enumerated in the body of the work, as so many species of the genus characterised by such or such a name. If in the course of any such process I came to a mode of conduct which, though it required to be taken notice of, and perhaps had actually been taken notice of, under all laws, in the character of an offence, had hitherto been expressed under different laws, by different circumlocutions, without ever having received any name capable of occupying the place of a substantive in a sentence, I have frequently ventured so far as to fabricate a new name for it, such an one as the idiom of the language, and the acquaintance I happened to have with it, would admit of. These names consisting in most instances, and that unavoidably, of two or three words brought together, in a language too which admits not, like the German and the Greek, of their being melted into one, can never be upon a par, in point of commodiousness, with those univocal appellatives which make part of the established stock.
In the choice of names in current use, care has been taken to avoid all such as have been grounded on local distinctions, ill founded perhaps in the nation in which they received their birth, and at any rate not applicable to the circumstances of other countries.
The analysis, as far as it goes, is as applicable to the legal concerns of one country as of another: and where, if it had descended into further details, it would have ceased to be so, there I have taken care always to stop: and thence it is that it has come to be so much more particular in the class of offences against individuals, than in any of the other classes. One use then of this arrangement, if it should be found to have been properly conducted, will be its serving to point out in what it is that the legal interests of all countries agree, and in what it is that they are liable to differ: how far a rule that is proper for one, will serve, and how far it will not serve, for another. That the legal interests of different ages and countries have nothing in common, and that they have every thing, are suppositions equally distant from the truth.
*99
LVII. A natural method, such as it hath been here attempted to exhibit, seems to possess four capital advantages; not to mention others of inferior note. In the first place, it affords such assistance to the apprehension and to the memory, as those faculties would in vain look for in any technical arrangement.
*100 That arrangement of the objects of any science may, it should seem, be termed a
natural one, which takes such properties to characterise them by, as men in general are, by the common constitution of man’s nature, independently of any accidental impressions they may have received from the influence of any local or other particular causes, accustomed to attend to: such, in a word, as
naturally, that is readily and at first sight, engage, and firmly fix, the attention of any one to whom they have once been pointed out. Now by what other means should an object engage or fix a man’s attention, unless by interesting him? and what circumstance belonging to any action can be more interesting, or rather what other circumstance belonging to it can be at all interesting to him, than that of the influence it promises to have on his own happiness, and the happiness of those who are about him? By what other mark then should he more easily find the place which any offence occupies in the system, or by what other clue should he more readily recall it?
LVIII. In the next place, it not only gives at first glance a general intimation of the nature of each division of offences, in as far as that nature is determined by some one characteristic property, but it gives room for a number of general propositions to be formed concerning the particular offences that come under that division, in such manner as to exhibit a variety of other properties that may belong to them in common. It gives room therefore, for the framing of a number of propositions concerning them, which, though very general, because predicated of a great number of articles, shall be as generally true.
*101
LIX. In the third place, it is so contrived, that the very place which any offence is made to occupy, suggests the reason of its being put there. It serves to indicate not only that such and such acts are made offences, but
why they
ought to be. By this means, while it addresses itself to the understanding, it recommends itself in some measure to the affections. By the intimation it gives of the nature and tendency of each obnoxious act, it accounts for, and in some measure vindicates, the treatment which it may be thought proper to bestow upon that act in the way of punishment. To the subject then it is a kind of perpetual apology: showing the necessity of every defalcation, which, for the security and prosperity of each individual, it is requisite to make from the liberty of every other. To the legislator it is a kind of perpetual lesson: serving at once as a corrective to his prejudices, and as a check upon his passions. Is there a mischief which has escaped him? in a natural arrangement, if at the same time an exhaustive one, he cannot fail to find it. Is he tempted ever to force innocence within the pale of guilt? the difficulty of finding a place for it advertises him of his error. Such are the uses of a map of universal delinquency, laid down upon the principle of utility: such the advantages, which the legislator as well as the subject may derive from it. Abide by it, and every thing that is arbitrary in legislation vanishes. An evil-intentioned or prejudiced legislator durst not look it in the face. He would proscribe it, and with reason: it would be a satire on his laws.
LX. In the fourth place, a natural arrangement, governed as it is by a principle which is recognised by all men, will serve alike for the jurisprudence of all nations. In a system of proposed law, framed in pursuance of such a method, the language will serve as a glossary by which all systems of positive law might be explained, while the matter serves as a standard by which they might be tried. Thus illustrated, the practice of every nation might be a lesson to every other: and mankind might carry on a mutual interchange of experiences and improvements as easily in this as in every other walk of science. If any one of these objects should in any degree be attained, the labour of this analysis, severe as it has been, will not have been thrown away.
§ 5.
Characters of the five classes
LXI. It has been mentioned
*102 as an advantage possessed by this method, and not possessed by any other, that the objects comprised under it are cast into groups, to which a variety of propositions may be applied in common. A collection of these propositions, as applied to the several classes, may be considered as exhibiting the distinctive characters of each class. So many of these propositions as can be applied to the offences belonging to any given class, so many properties are they found to have in common: so many of these common properties as may respectively be attributed to them, so many properties may be set down to serve as
characters of the class. A collection of these characters it may here be proper to exhibit. The more of them we can bring together, the more clearly and fully will the nature of the several classes, and of the offences they are composed of, be understood.
LXII. Characters of Class 1; composed of PRIVATE offences, or offences against assignable
individuals.
consummation*103) they produce, all of them, a primary mischief as well as a secondary.
*104
2. The individuals whom they affect in the first instance
*105 are constantly
assignable. This extends to all; to
attempts and
preparations, as well as to such as have arrived at the stage of consummation.
*106
3. Consequently they admit of
compensation:*107 in which they differ from the offences of all the other classes, as such.
4. They admit
*108 also of
retaliation;*109 in which also they differ from the offences of all the other classes.
5. There is always some person who has a natural and peculiar interest to prosecute them. In this they differ from self-regarding offences: also from semi-public and public ones; except in as far as the two latter may chance to involve a private mischief.
6. The mischief they produce is obvious: more so than that of semi-public offences: and still more so than that of self-regarding ones, or even public.
7. They are every where, and must ever be, obnoxious to the censure of the world: more so than semi-public offences as such; and still more so than public ones.
8. They are more
constantly obnoxious to the censure of the world than self-regarding offences: and would be so universally, were it not for the influence of the two false principles; the principle of asceticism, and the principle of antipathy.
*110
9. They are less apt than semi-public and public offences to require different descriptions
*111 in different states and countries: in which respect they are much upon a par with self-regarding ones.
10. By certain circumstances of aggravation, they are liable to be transformed into semi-public offences; and by certain others, into public.
11. There can be no ground for punishing them, until they can be proved to have occasioned, or to be about to occasion some particular mischief to some particular individual. In this they differ from semi-public offences, and from public.
12. In slight cases,
compensation given to the individual affected by them may be a sufficient ground for remitting punishment: for if the primary mischief has not been sufficient to produce any alarm, the whole of the mischief may be cured by compensation. In this also they differ from semi-public offences, and from public ones.
LXIII. Characters of Class 2; composed of SEMI-PUBLIC offences, or offences affecting a whole subordinate
class of persons.
2. In as far as they are to be considered as belonging to this class, the persons whom they affect in the first instance are not individually assignable.
3. They are apt, however, to involve or terminate in some primary mischief of the first order; which when they do, they advance into the first class, and become private offences.
4. They admit not, as such, of compensation.
5. Nor of retaliation.
6. As such, there is never any one particular individual whose exclusive interest it is to prosecute them: a circle of persons may, however, always be marked out, within which may be found some who have a greater interest to prosecute than any who are out of that circle have.
7. The mischief they produce is in general pretty obvious: not so much so indeed as that of private offences, but more so upon the whole than that of self-regarding and public ones.
8. They are rather less obnoxious to the censure of the world than private offences; but they are more so than public ones: they would also be more so than self-regarding ones, were it not for the influence of the two false principles, the principle of sympathy and antipathy, and that of asceticism.
9. They are more apt than private and self-regarding offences to require different descriptions in different countries: but less so than public ones.
10. There may be ground for punishing them before they have been proved to have occasioned, or to be about to occasion, mischief to any particular individual; which is not the case with private offences.
11. In no cases can satisfaction given to any particular individual affected by them be a sufficient ground for remitting punishment: for by such satisfaction it is but a part of the mischief of them that is cured. In this they differ from private offences; but agree with public.
LXIV. Characters of Class 3; consisting of SELF-REGARDING offences: offences against
one’s self.
*112 mischief at all: secondary, they produce none.
2. They affect not any other individuals, assignable or not assignable, except in as far as they affect the offender himself; unless by possibility in particular cases; and in a very slight and distant manner the whole state.
3. They admit not, therefore, of
compensation.
4. Nor of
retaliation.
5. No person has naturally any peculiar interest to prosecute them: except in as far as in virtue of some
connection he may have with the offender, either in point of
sympathy or of
interest,*113 a mischief of the
derivative kind
*114 may happen to devolve upon him.
*115
6. The mischief they produce is apt to be unobvious and in general more questionable than that of any of the other classes.
*116
7. They are however apt, many of them, to be more obnoxious to the censure of the world than public offences; owing to the influence of the two false principles; the principle of asceticism, and the principle of antipathy. Some of them more even than semi-public, or even than private offence.
8. They are less apt than offences of any other class to require different descriptions in different states and countries.
*117
9. Among the inducements
*118 to punish them, antipathy against the offender is apt to have a greater share than sympathy for the public.
10. The best plea for punishing them is founded on a faint probability there may be of their being productive of a mischief, which, if real, will place them in the class of public ones: chiefly in those divisions of it which are composed of offences against population, and offences against the national wealth.
LXV. Characters of Class 4; consisting of PUBLIC offences, or offences against the
state in general.
value, is in
specie very indeterminate.
2. The individuals whom they affect, in the first instance, are constantly unassignable; except in as far as by accident they happen to involve or terminate in such or such offences against individuals.
3. Consequently they admit not of compensation.
4. Nor of retaliation.
5. Nor is there any person who has naturally any particular interest to prosecute them; except in as far as they appear to affect the power, or in any other manner the private interest, of some person in authority.
6. The mischief they produce, as such, is comparatively unobvious; much more so than that of private offences, and more so likewise, than that of semi-public ones.
7. They are, as such, much less obnoxious to the censure of the world, than private offences; less even than semi-public, or even than self-regarding offences; unless in particular cases, through sympathy to certain persons in authority, whose private interests they may appear to affect.
8. They are more apt than any of the other classes to admit of different descriptions, in different states and countries.
9. They are constituted, in many cases, by some circumstances of aggravation superadded to a private offence: and therefore, in these cases, involve the mischief and exhibit the other characters belonging to both classes. They are however, even in such cases, properly enough ranked in the 4th class, inasmuch as the mischief they produce in virtue of the properties which aggregate them to that class, eclipses and swallows up that which they produce in virtue of those properties which aggregate them to the 1st.
10. There may be sufficient ground for punishing them, without their being proved to have occasioned, or to be about to occasion, any particular mischief to any particular individual. In this they differ from private offences, but agree with semi-public ones. Here, as in semi-public offences, the
extent of the mischief makes up for the
uncertainty of it.
11. In no case can satisfaction, given to any particular individual affected by them, be a sufficient ground for remitting punishment. In this they differ from private offences; but agree with semi-public.
LXVI. Characters of Class 5, or appendix: composed of MULTIFORM or ANOMALOUS offences; and containing offences by FALSEHOOD, and offences concerning TRUST.
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 divisions 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.
*119 In other instances, the offence may subsist without it; and where it interferes, it comes in as an accidental independent circumstance, capable of constituting a ground of aggravation.
*120
method are various: but the general one is, to enable men to understand the things that are the subjects of it. To understand a thing, is to be acquainted with its qualities or properties. Of these properties, some are common to it with other things; the rest, peculiar. But the qualities which are peculiar to any one sort of thing are few indeed, in comparison with those which are common to it with other things. To make it known in respect of its
difference, would therefore be doing little, unless it were made known also by its
genus. To understand it perfectly, a man must therefore be informed of the points in which it agrees as well as of those in which it disagrees, with all other things. When a number of objects, composing a logical whole, are to be considered together all of these possessing with respect to one another a certain congruency or agreement denoted by a certain name, there is but one way of giving a perfect knowledge of their nature; and that is, by distributing them into a system of parcels, each of them a part, either of some other parcel, or, at any rate, of the common whole. This can only be done in the way of
bipartition, dividing each superior branch into two, and but two, immediately subordinate ones; beginning with the logical whole, dividing that into two parts, then each of those parts into two others; and so on. These first-distinguished parts agree in respect of those properties which belong to the whole: they differ in respect of those properties which are peculiar to each. To divide the whole into more than two parcels at once, for example into three, would not answer the purpose; for, in fact, it is but two objects that the mind can compare together exactly at the same time. Thus then, let us endeavour to deal with offences; or rather, strictly speaking, with acts which possess such properties as seem to indicate them fit to be constituted offences. The task is arduous, and as
yet at least, perhaps
for ever, above our force. There is no speaking of objects but by their names: but the business of giving them names has always been prior to the true and perfect knowledge of their natures. Objects the most dissimilar have been spoken of and treated as if their properties were the same. Objects the most similar have been spoken of and treated as if they had scarce anything in common. Whatever discoveries may be made concerning them, how different soever their congruencies and disagreements may be found to be from those which are indicated by their names, it is not without the utmost difficulty that any means can be found out of expressing those discoveries by a conformable set of names. Change the import of the old names, and you are in perpetual danger of being misunderstood: introduce an entire new set of names, and you are sure not to be understood at all. Complete success then, is, as yet at least, unattainable. But an attempt, though imperfect, may have its use: and, at the worst, it may accelerate the arrival of that perfect system, the possession of which will be the happiness of some maturer age. Gross ignorance descries no difficulties; imperfect knowledge finds them out, and struggles with them: it must be perfect knowledge that overcomes them.
terminis legis. To give particular references to these definitions, would be encumbering the page to little purpose.
simple, in order to distinguish them from confinement, banishment, robbery, and extortion, all which are, in many cases, but so many modifications of one or other of the two first-mentioned offences
To constitute an offence an act of simple injurious restrainment, or simple injurious compulsion, it is sufficient if the influence it exerts be, in the first place, pernicious; in the next place, exerted on the person by the medium of the will: it is not necessary that that part of the person on which it is exerted be the part to which it is pernicious: it is not even necessary that it should immediately be pernicious to either of these parts, though to one or other of them it must be pernicious in the long-run, if it be pernicious at all. An act in which the body, for example, is concerned, may be very disagreeable, and thereby pernicious to him who performs it, though neither disagreeable nor pernicious to his body: for instance, to stand or sit in public with a label on his back, or under any other circumstances of ignominy.
alluring kind.
worth while [see ch. xiii. Cases unmeet] in every instance, for the sake of combating that mischief, to introduce the evil of punishment. In the course of this detail it will be observed, that there are several heads of extra-regarding private offences, to which the correspondent heads, either of semi-public or self-regarding offences, or of both, are wanting. The reasons of these deficiencies will probably, in most instances, be evident enough upon the face of them. Lest they should not, they are however specified in the body of the work. They would take up too much room were they to be inserted here.
I. SEMI-PUBLIC OFFENCES through calamity. Calamities, by which the persons or properties of men, or both, are liable to be affected, seem to be as follows: 1. Pestilence or contagion. 2. Famine, and other kinds of scarcity. 3. Mischiefs producible by persons deficient in point of understanding, such as infants, idiots, and maniacs, for want of their being properly taken care of. 4. Mischief producible by the ravages of noxious animals, such as beasts of prey, locusts, &c. &c. 5. Collapsion, or fall of large masses of solid matter, such as decayed buildings, or rocks, or masses of snow. 6. Inundation or submersion. 7. Tempest. 8. Blight. 9. Conflagration. 10. Explosion. In as far as a man may contribute, by any imprudent act of his, to give birth to any of the above calamities, such act may be an offence. In as far as a man may fail to do what is incumbent on him to do towards preventing them, such failure may be an offence.
II. SEMI-PUBLIC OFFENCES of mere delinquency. A whole neighbourhood may be made to suffer, 1. Simple corporal injuries: in other words they may be made to suffer in point of health, by offensive or dangerous trades or manufactures: by selling or falsely puffing off unwholesome medicines or provisions: by poisoning or drying up of springs, destroying of aqueducts, destroying woods, walls, or other fences against wind and rain: by any kinds of artificial scarcity; or by any other calamities intentionally produced. 2. and 3. Simple injurious restrainment, and simple injurious compulsion: for instance, by obliging a whole neighbourhood, by dint of threatening hand-bills or threatening discourses, publicly delivered, to join, or forbear to join, in illuminations, acclamations, outcries, invectives, subscriptions, undertakings, processions, or any other mode of expressing joy or grief, displeasure or approbation, or, in short, in any other course of conduct whatsoever. 4. and 5. Confinement and banishment: by the spoiling of roads, bridges, or ferry-boats: by destroying or unwarrantably pre-occupying public carriages, or houses of accommodation. 6. By menacement: as by incendiary letters, and tumultuous assemblies: by newspapers or hand-bills, denouncing vengeance against persons of particular denominations: for example, against Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Scotchmen, Gascons, Catalonians, &c. 7. Simple mental injuries: as by distressful, terrifying, obscene, or irreligious exhibitions; such as exposure of sores by beggars, exposure of dead bodies, exhibitions or reports of counterfeit witchcrafts or apparitions, exhibition of obscene or blasphemous prints: obscene or blasphemous discourses held in public: spreading false news of public defeats in battle, or of other misfortunes.
III. Self-regarding offences against person. 1. Fasting. Abstinence from venery, self-flagellation, self-mutilation, and other self-denying and self-tormenting practices. 2. Gluttony, drunkenness, excessive venery, and other species of intemperance. 3. Suicide.
II. SELF-REGARDING OFFENCES. 1. Incontinence in females. 2. Incest.
with relation indeed
to the thing said to be
paid, but not in a physical sense exercised
upon it. A man who owes you ten pounds, takes up a handful of silver to that amount, and lays it down on a table at which you are sitting. If then by words, or gestures, or any means whatever, addressing himself to you, he intimates it to be his will that you should take up the money, and do with it as you please, he is said to have
paid you: but if the case was, that he laid it down not for that purpose, but for some other, for instance, to count it and examine it, meaning to take it up again himself, or leave it for somebody else, he has
not paid you: yet the physical acts, exercised upon the pieces of money in question, are in both cases the same. Till he does express a will to that purport, what you have is not, properly speaking, the legal possession of the money, or a right to the money, but only a right to have him, or in his default perhaps a minister of justice, compelled to render you that sort of service, by the rendering of which he is said to pay you: that is, to express such will as above-mentioned, with regard to some corporeal article, or other of a certain species, and of value equal to the amount of what he owes you: or, in other words, to exercise in your favour an act of investitive power with relation to some such article
True it is, that in certain cases a man may perhaps not be deemed according to common acceptation, to have
paid you, without rendering you a further set of services, and those of another sort: a set of services, which are rendered by the exercising of certain acts of a physical nature upon the very thing with which he is said to pay you: to wit, by transferring the thing to a certain place where you may be sure to find it, and where it may be convenient for you to receive it. But these services, although the obligation of rendering them should be annexed by law to the obligation of rendering those other services in the performance of which the operation of payment properly consists, are plainly acts of a distinct nature: nor are they essential to the operation: by themselves they do not constitute it, and it may be performed without them. It
must be performed without them wherever the thing to be transferred happens to be already as much within the reach, physically speaking, of the creditor, as by any act of the debtor it can be made to be.
This matter would have appeared in a clearer light had it been practicable to enter here into a full examination of the nature of property, and the several modifications of which it is susceptible: but every thing cannot be done at once.
breach of contract: for the obligation to render services may be grounded either on contract, or upon other titles: in other words, the event of a man’s engaging in a contract is one out of many other investitive events from which the right of receiving them may take its commencement. See ch. xvii. [Limits], § iv.
Were the word
services to be taken in its utmost latitude (negative included as well as positive) this one head would cover the whole law. To this place then are to be referred such services only, the withholding of which does not coincide with any of the other offenses, for which separate denominations have been provided.
detinue and
detainer: detinue applied chiefly to movables; detainer, to immovables. Under detinue and detainer cases are also comprised, in which the offense consists in forbearing to transfer the legal possession of the thing: such oases may be considered as coming under the head of wrongful non-investment. The distinction between mere physical possession and legal possession, where the latter is short-lived and defeasible, seems scarcely hitherto to have been attended to. In a multitude of instances they are confounded under the same expressions. The cause is, that probably under all laws, and frequently for very good reasons, the legal possession, with whatever certainty defeasible upon the event of a trial, is, down to the time of that event, in many cases annexed to the appearance of the physical.
bubbles or fraudulent partnership, or gaming adventures; propagating false news to raise or sink the value of stocks, or of any other denomination of property.
II. SELF-REGARDING OFFENCES. 1. Idleness. 2. Gaming. 3. Other species of prodigality.
II. SELF-REGARDING OFFENCES. 1. Sacrifice of virginity. 2. Indecencies not public.
duress.
forcible occupation is in current use. The word
detinue is applied to movables only: and (in the language of the law) the word
forcible has never been combined with it. The word applied to immovables is
detainer: this is combined with the word
forcible: and what is singular, it is scarcely in use without that word. It was impossible to steer altogether clear of this technical nomenclature, on account of the influence which it has on the body of the language.
II. SELF-REGARDING OFFENSES—none.
connubial and
post-connubial, all I mean at present to bring to view is, the mere physical union, apart from the ceremonies and legal engagements that will afterwards be considered as accompanying it.
borne by one of the objects which are parties to it, to the other, or to
subsist between them. The latter mode of phraseology is, perhaps, rather the more common. In such case the idea seems to be, that from the consideration of the two objects there results but one relation, which belongs as it were in common to them both. In some cases, this perhaps may answer the purpose very well: it will not, however, in the present case. For the present purpose it will be necessary we should conceive two relations as resulting from the two objects, and
borne, since such is the phrase,
by the one of them to or towards the other: one relation borne by the first object to the second: another relation borne by the second object to the first. This is necessary on two accounts: 1. Because for the relations themselves there are in many instances separate names: for example, the relations of guardianship and wardship: in which case, the speaking of them as if they were but one, may be productive of much confusion. 2. Because the two different relationships give birth to so many conditions: which conditions are so far different, that what is predicated and will hold good of the one, will, in various particulars, as we shall see, not hold good of the other.
generalization: here was the work of genius. But in the disposal of domestic power, every legislator, without any effort of genius, has been a Solon. So much for
reasons:* add to which, in point of
motives,** that legislators seem all to have been of the male sex, down to the days of Catherine. I speak here of those who frame laws, not of those who touch them with a sceptre.
* Social motives: sympathy for the public: love of reputation, &c.
** Self-regarding motives: or social motives, which are social in a less extent: sympathy for persons of a particular description: persons of the same sex.
apprentice. In this case, though the superior is, in point of usage, known by no other name than that of a master, the relationship is in point of fact a mixed one, compounded of that of
master and that of
guardian.
right, it may happen that he has eloped for instance, and is not a slave in point of
fact: or, suppose him a slave in point of fact, and ever so vigilantly guarded, still a person connected with him by the ties of sympathy, might do that for him which, though willing and assenting, he might not be able to do for himself: might forge a deed of donation, for example, from the one master to the other.
together indeed, take the sum of the two interests, and the case, as we have seen (supra, xl), is then the reverse. That case, it is to be remembered, proceeds only upon the supposition that the two parties are obliged to live together; for suppose it to be at their option to part, the necessity of establishing the power ceases.
child is ambiguous being employed in another sense, perhaps more frequently than in this: more frequently in opposition to
a person of full age, an
adult, than in correlation to a
parent. For the condition itself we have no other word than
filiation: an ill-contrived term, not analogous to paternity and maternity: the proper term would have been
filiality: the word filiation is as frequently, perhaps, and more consistently, put for the act of establishing a person in the possession of the condition of filiality.
II. SELF-REGARDING offenses.—Improvident marriage on the part of minors.
I. OFFENCES against the EXTERNAL SECURITY of the state. 1. Treason (in favour of foreign enemies). It may be positive or negative (negative consisting, for example, in the not opposing the commission of positive). 2.
Espionage (in favour of foreign rivals not yet enemies). 3. Injuries to foreigners at large (including piracy). 4. Injuries to privileged foreigners (such as ambassadors).
II. OFFENCES AGAINST JUSTICE. Offences against judicial trust: viz. Wrongful non-investment of judicial trust, wrongful interception of judicial trust, wrongful divestment of judicial trust, usurpation of judicial trust, wrongful investment of judicial trust, wrongful abdication of judicial trust, wrongful detrectation of judicial trust, wrongful imposition of judicial trust, breach of judicial trust, abuse of judicial trust, disturbance of judicial trust, and bribery in prejudice of judicial trust.
Breach and abuse of judicial trust may be either intentional or unintentional. Intentional is culpable at any rate. Unintentional will proceed either from inadvertence, or from mis-supposal: if the inadvertence be coupled with heedlessness, or the mis-supposal with rashness, it is culpable: if not, blameless. For the particular acts by which the exercise of judicial trust may be
disturbed see B. i. tit. [Offences against justice]. They are too multifarious, and too ill provided with names, to be exhibited here.
If a man fails in fulfilling the duties of this trust, and thereby comes either to break or to abuse it, it must be through some deficiency in the three requisite and only requisite endowments, of knowledge, inclination, and power. [See supra, xxvii.] A deficiency in any of those points, if any person be in fault, may proceed either from his own fault, or from the fault of those who should act with or under him. If persons who are in fault are persons invested with judicial trust, the offence comes under the head of breach or abuse of trust: if other persons, under that of disturbance of trust.
The ill effects of any breach, abuse, or disturbance of judicial trust, will consist in the production of some article or articles in the list of the mischiefs which it ought to be the original purpose of judicial procedure to remedy or avert, and of those which it ought to be the incidental purpose of it to avoid producing. These are either primary (that is immediate) or remote: remote are of the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th order, and so on. The primary are those which import actual pain to persons assignable, and are therefore mischievous in themselves: the secondary are mischievous on account of the tendency they have to produce some article or articles in the catalogue of those of the first order; and are therefore mischievous in their effects. Those of the 3rd order are mischievous only on account of the connection they have in the way of productive tendency, as before, with those of the 2nd order: and so on.
Primary inconveniences, which it ought to be the object of procedure to provide against, are, 1. The continuance of the individual offence itself, and thereby the increase as well as continuance of the mischief of it. 2 The continuance of the whole mischief of the individual offence. 3. The continuance of a part of the mischief of the individual offence. 4. Total want of amends on the part of persons injured by the offence. 5. Partial want of amends on the part of persons injured by the offence. 6. Superfluous punishment of delinquents. 7. Unjust punishment of persons accused. 8. Unnecessary labour, expense, or other suffering or danger, on the part of superior judicial officers. 9. Unnecessary labour, expense, or other suffering or danger, on the part of ministerial or other subordinate judicial officers. 10. Unnecessary labour, expense, or other suffering or danger, on the part of persons whose co-operation is requisite
pro re natâ, in order to make up the necessary complement of knowledge and power on the part of judicial officers, who are such by profession. 11. Unnecessary labour, expense, or other suffering or danger, on the part of persons at large, coming under the sphere of the operations of the persons above mentioned.
Secondary inconveniences are, in the consultative, pre-interpretative (or purely civil) branch of procedure, 1. Misinterpretation or adjudication. In the executive (including the penal) branch. 2. Total impunity of delinquents: (as favouring the production of other offences of the like nature). 3. Partial impunity of delinquents. 4. Application of punishment improper in specie, though perhaps not in degree (this lessening the beneficial efficacy of the quantity employed). 5. Uneconomical application of punishment, though proper, perhaps, as well in specie as in degree. 6. Unnecessary pecuniary expense on the part of the state.
Inconveniences of the 3rd order are, 1. Unnecessary delay. 2. Unnecessary intricacy.
Inconveniences of the 4th order are, 1. Breach, 2. Abuse, 3. Disturbance, of judicial trust, as above: viz. in as far as these offences are preliminary to and distinct from those of the 2nd and 3rd orders.
Inconveniences of the 5th order are, Breach of the several regulations of procedure, or other regulations, made in the view of obviating the inconveniences above enumerated: viz. if preliminary and distinct, as before.
III. OFFENCES against the PREVENTIVE branch of the POLICE. I. Offences against
phthano-paranomic trust: (
, to prevent;
, an offence). 2. Offences against
phthano-symphoric trust: (
, a calamity). The two trusts may be termed by the common appellation of
prophylactic: (
, beforehand, and
, to guard against).
IV. OFFENCES against the PUBLIC FORCE. 1. Offences against military trust, corresponding to those against judicial trust. Military desertion is a breach of military duty, or of military trust. Favouring desertion is a disturbance of it. 2. Offences against that branch of public trust which consists in the management of the several sorts of things appropriated to the purposes of war: such as arsenals, fortifications, dock-yards, ships of war, artillery, ammunition, military magazines, and so forth. It might be termed
polemo-tamieutic: from
, war; and
, a steward.*
V. OFFENCES against the POSITIVE increase of the NATIONAL FELICITY. 1. Offences against
epistemo-threptic trust:
, knowledge; and
, to nourish or promote). 2. Offences against
eupædagogic trust: (
, well; and
, to educate). 3. Offences against
noso-comial trust: (
, a disease; and
, to take care of). 4. Offences against
moro-comial trust: (
, an insane person). 5. Offences against
ptocho-comial trust: (
, the poor). 6. Offences against
antembletic trust: (
, to bestow in reparation of a loss). 7. Offences against
hedonarchic trust: (
, pleasures; and
, to preside over). The above are examples of the principal establishments which should or might be set on foot for the purpose of making, in so many different ways, a positive addition to the stock of national felicity. To exhibit an exhaustive analysis of the possible total of these establishments would not be a very easy task: nor on the present occasion is it a necessary one: for be they of what nature and in what number they may, the offences to which they stand exposed will, in as far as they are offences against trust, be in point of denomination the same: and as to what turns upon the particular nature of each trust, they will be of too local a nature to come within the present plan.
All these trusts might be comprised under some such general name as that of
agatho-poieutic trust: (
, to do good to any one).
VI. OFFENCES against the PUBLIC WEALTH. 1. Non-payment of forfeitures. 2. Non-payment of taxes, including smuggling. 3. Breach of the several regulations made to prevent the evasion of taxes. 4. Offences against fiscal trust: the same as offences against judicial and military trusts. Offences against the original revenue, not accruing either from taxes or forfeitures, such as that arising from the public demesnes, stand upon the same footing as offences against private property. 5. Offences against
demosio-tamieutic trust: (
, things belonging to the public; and
, a steward) viz. against that trust, of which the object is to apply to their several destinations such articles of the public wealth as are provided for the indiscriminate accommodation of individuals: such as public roads and waters, public harbours, post-offices, and packet boats, and the stock belonging to them; market-places, and other such public buildings; race-grounds, public walks, and so forth. Offences of this description will be apt to coincide with offences against
agatho-poieutic trust as above, or with offences against
ethno-plutistic trust hereafter mentioned, according as the benefit in question is considered in itself, or as resulting from the application of such or such a branch or portion of the public wealth.
VII. OFFENCES against POPULATION. 1. Emigration. 2. Suicide. 3. Procurement of impotence or barrenness. 4. Abortion. 5. Unprolific coition. 6. Celibacy.
VIII. OFFENCES against the NATIONAL WEALTH. 1. Idleness. 2. Breach of the regulations made in the view of preventing the application of industry to purposes less profitable, in prejudice of purposes more profitable. 3. Offences against
ethno-plutistic trust: (
, the nation at large;
, to enrich).
IX. OFFENCES against the SOVEREIGNTY. 1. Offences against sovereign trust: corresponding to those against judicial, prophylactic, military, and fiscal trusts. Offensive rebellion includes wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and wrongful investment, of sovereign trust, with the offences accessory thereto. Where the trust is in a single person, wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and wrongful investment cannot, any of them, be committed without rebellion: abdication and detrectation can never be deemed wrongful: breach and abuse of sovereign trust can scarce be punished: no more can bribe-taking: wrongful imposition of it is scarce practicable. When the sovereignty is shared among a number, wrongful interception, wrongful divestment, usurpation, and wrongful investment, may be committed without rebellion: none of the offences against this trust are impracticable: nor is there any of them but might be punished. Defensive rebellion is disturbance of this trust. Political tumults, political defamation, and political vilification, are offences accessory to such disturbance.
Sovereign power (which, upon the principle of utility, can never be other than fiduciary) is exercised either by rule or without rule: in the latter case it may be termed
autocratic: in the former case it is divided into two branches, the
legislative and the
executive.** In either case, where the designation of the person by whom the power is to be possessed, depends not solely upon mere physical events, such as that of natural succession but in any sort upon the will of another person, the latter possesses an
investitive power, or right of investiture, with regard to the power in question: in like manner may any person also possess a
divestitive power. The powers above enumerated, such as judicial power, military power, and so forth, may therefore be exercisable by a man, either directly,
propriâ manu; or indirectly,
manu alienâ.*** Power to be exercised
manu alienâ is investitive, which may or may not be accompanied by divestitive. Of sovereign power, whether autocratic, legislative, or executive, the several public trusts above mentioned form so many subordinate branches. Any of these powers may be placed, either, 1. in an individual; or, 2. in a body politic: who may be either supreme or subordinate. Subordination on the part of a magistrate may be established, 1. By the person’s being punishable: 2. By his being removable: 3. By the orders being reversible.
X. OFFENCES against RELIGION. 1. Offences tending to weaken the force of the religious sanction: including blasphemy and profaneness. 2. Offences tending to misapply the force of the religious sanction: including false prophecies, and other pretended revelations; also heresy, where the doctrine broached is pernicious to the temporal interests of the community. 3. Offences against religious trust, where any such is thought fit to be established.
XI. OFFENCES against the NATIONAL INTEREST in general. 1. Immoral publications. 2. Offences against the trust of an ambassador; or, as it might be termed,
presbeutic trust. 3. Offences against the trust of a privy-counsellor; or, as it might be termed,
symbouleutic trust. 4. In pure or mixed monarchies, prodigality on the part of persons who are about the person of the sovereign, though without being invested with any specific trust. 5. Excessive gaming on the part of the same persons. 6. Taking presents from rival powers without leave.
* A number of different branches of public trust, none of which have yet been provided with appellatives, have here been brought to view: which then were best? to coin new names for them out of the Greek; or, instead of a word to make use of a whole sentence? In English, and in French, there is no other alternative; no more than in any of the other southern languages. It rests with the reader to determine.
** See ch. xvii. [Limits], § iii.
*** In the former case, the power might be termed in one word,
autochirous: in the latter
heterochirous. (
, a man’s own;
, a hand;
, another’s).
Fragment on Government, pref. p. xlv. edit. 1776.—pref. p. xlvii. edit. 1823.
delicta privata et publica, and with the
publica ordinaria, and
publica extra-ordinaria of the Roman law.* All this for want of method: and hence the necessity of endeavouring to strike out a new one.
Nor is this want of method to be wondered at. A science so new as that of penal legislation, could hardly have been in any better state. Till objects are distinguished, they cannot be arranged. It is thus that
truth and
order go on hand in hand. It is only in proportion as the former is discovered, that the latter can be improved. Before a certain order is established, truth can be but imperfectly announced: but until a certain proportion of truth has been developed and brought to light, that order cannot be established. The discovery of truth leads to the establishment of order: and the establishment of order fixes and propagates the discovery of truth.
* See Heinecc, Elem. p. vii, § 79, 80.
capable of being applied in the cases in question, not that it
ought always to be employed. Nor is it capable of being applied in every
individual instance of each offence, but only in some individual instance of each
species of offence.
law of nature: a vague expression, and productive of a multitude of inconveniences. See ch. ii. [Principles adverse] xiv. note.
antipathy, which such acts are apt to excite. See ch. ii. [Principles adverse] xi.
defraudment.
Chapter XVII.