Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T21:51:46.953Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Conclusion: The province of legislation determined

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2009

Get access

Summary

Bentham concluded Of Laws in General with a brief survey of the “uses” of the work, in which he pointed to the more practical implications for law-making of the preceding analysis of “what a law is.” In particular he made plain that what he had now identified as a “complete body of laws” constructed “according to a method of division grounded on natural and universal principles,” could alone satisfy the requirements for a utilitarian system of legislation. Much of the argument turned on the interdependence Bentham established between an individual complete law and complete body of laws. In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation he maintained that “the notion of a complete law must first be fixed before the legislator can in any case know what it is he has to do, or when his work is done.” He now insisted that “before any such specimen” of an individual complete law could “be found,” “a perfect plan of legislation must first have been produced.” Moreover, any individual law, “how complete soever in itself,” was “never completely adapted to its purpose … until it be completely put together.” And this was again dependent on “the idea of such a body” of complete laws having “been formed.” No particular piece of legislative policy could achieve its purpose unless it was formulated as a complete law, and this, in turn, required its being a part of a complete system of laws.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Province of Legislation Determined
Legal Theory in Eighteenth-Century Britain
, pp. 277 - 290
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×