into two, and but two, immediately subordinate ones; begin- ing with the logical whole, dividing that into two parts, then CLASSES OF OFFENCES. 57 such as ought to be offences. Any act may be an offence, which they whom the community are in 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 proper- ties 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; o^ rather, strictly speaking, with acts which possess such pro- perties 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 any thing in common. Whatever discoveries may be made concerning them, how different soever their con- gruencies 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 ex- pressing those discoveries by a conformable set of names. Change the import of the old names, and you are in perpe- tual danger of being misunderstood: introduce an intire 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 ma- turer age. Gross ignorance descries no difficulties; im- 58 CLASSES OF OFFENCES.
the habit of obeying shall be pleased to make one: that is, any act which they shall be pleased to prohibit or to punish. But, upon the prin- ciple of utility, such acts alone ought to be made offences, as the good of the community requires should be made so.
II. No act The good of the community cannot require, an offence that auy act should be made an offence, which is detrimental not liable, iu somc way or other, to be detrimunity. mental to the community. For in the case of such an act, all punishment is groundless*.
III. To be so. it But if the whole assemblage of any number of triraentai to mdividuals be considered as constituting an ima- ginary compound body, a community or political state; any act that is detrimental to any one or more of those members is, as to so much of its effects, detrimental to the state.
IV.
These may An act caunot bc detrimental to a state, but be assign- able or not. by being detrimental to some one or more of the individuals that compose it. But these indivi- duals may either be assignable^ or unassignable.
perfect knowledge finds them out, and struggles with them: it must be perfect knowledge that overcomes them. * See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet] § ii, 1. Persons t [Assignable.] That is, either by name, or at least by assignable, description, in such manner as to be sufficiently distinguished some ore or more of its members.
CLASSES OF OFFENCES. 59 y Chap.
XVI.
When there is any assignable individual to jj: — v — ' whom an offence is detrimental, that person may ^^^^' ^'j^ °^'- ^ •' fender himeither be a person other than the offender, or the ^^jf. or others.
offender himself.
VI.
Offences that are detrimental, in the first in- Class i.
Private ofstance, to assignable persons other than the of- fences. fender, may be termed by one common name, offences against individuals. And of these may be composed the 1st class of offences. To contrast them with offences of the 2d and 4th classes, it may also sometimes be convenient to stile them private offences. To contrast them at the same time with offences of the 3d class, they may be stiled private ejctra-regardiug offences.
VII.
When it appears, in general, that there are Class 2.
persons to whom the act m question may be de- offences. trimental, but such persons cannot be indivi- dually assigned, the circle within which it appears that they may be found, is either of less extent than that which comprizes the whole community, or not. If of less, the persons comprized within this lesser circle may be considered for this purpose as composing a body of themselves; from all others; for instance, by the circumstance of being the owner or occupier of such and such goods. See B. I. tit. [Personation.] Supra, ch. xii. [Consequences] xv.
60 CLASSES OF OFFENCES.
^'^^J"- comprized within, but distinguishable from, the — ^' — ' greater body of the whole community. The circumstance that constitutes the union between the members of this lesser body, may be either their residence within a particular place, or, in short, any other less explicit principle of union, which may serve to distinguish them from the remaining members of the community. In the first case, the act may be stiled an offence against a neighbourliood: in the second, an offence against a particular class of persons in the community. Offences, then, against a class or neighbourhood, may, together, constitute the 2d class of offences*. To contrast them with private offences on the one hand, and public on the other, they may also be stiled semi-public offences.
Limits be- * With regard to offences against a class or neighbour- vate sciuU "^00^ > ^t is evident, that the fewer the individuals are, of public, and which such class is composed, and the narrower that neigh- fences, are, bourhood is, the more likely are the persons, to whom the speaknie offence is detrimental, to become assignable; insomuch that, undis- in some cases, it may be difficult to determine concerning a given oflence, whether it be an onence against individuals, or against a class or neighbourhood. It is evident also, that the larger the class or neighbourhood is, the more it ap- proaches to a coincidence with the great body of the state. The three classes, therefore, are liable, to a certain degree, to run into one another, and be confounded. But this is no more than what is the case, more or less, with all those ideal compartments under which men are wont to distribute objects for the convenience of discourse.
CLASSES OF OFFENCES. ^^ XVI.
Offences, which in the first instance are detri- 'TT'^t^ ' Class o.
mental to the offender himself, and to no one else, Seii-regard- unless it be by their being detrimental to himself, may serve to compose a third class. To contrast them the better with offences of the first, second, and fourth classes, all which are of a transitive nature, they might be stiled intransitive* offences; but still better, self -regarding.
IX.
The fourth class may be composed of such acts Class 4.
as ought to be made offences, on account of the fences. distant mischief which they threaten to bring upon an unassignable indefinite multitude of the whole number of individuals, of which the com- munity is composed: although no particular indi- vidual should appear more likely to be a sufferer by them than another. These may be called public offences, or offences against the state.
X.
A fifth class, or appendix, may be composed of Ciass 5.
such acts as, according to the circumstances in offences, viz.
1» Offences which they are committed, and more particularly by falsehood Q Offences according to the purposes to which they are against trust. applied, may be detrimental in any one of the ways in which the act of one man can be detri- mental to another. These may be termed multi- form, or heterogeneous offences j;. Offences that * See ch. vii. [Actions] xiii.
t 1. Offences hy falsehood: 2. Offences against trust. See '[^»|f jer- CLASSES OF OFFENCES.
^^J^' are in this case may be reduced to two great — ^-^ — ' heads: 1. Offences hy falsehood: and, 2. Offences against trust.
language an also par. XX. to XXX. and par. LXVI. Maturer views arranee^- ° have Suggested the feasibility, and the means, of ridding ment. the system of this anomalous excrescence. Instead of considering these as so many divisions of offences, divided into genera, correspondent and collateral to the several genera distinguished by other appellations, they may be considered as so many specific differences, respectively applicable to those genera. Thus, in the case of a simple personal injury, in the operation of which a plan of falsehood has been employed: it seems more simple and more natural, to consider the offence thus committed as a particular species or modification of the genus of offence termed a simple personal injury, than to consider the simple personal injury, when effected by such means, as a modification of the di- vision of offences entitled Offences through falsehood. By this means the circumstances of the intervention of false- hood as an instrument, and of the existence of a par- ticular obligation of the nature of a trust, will be reduced to a par with various other classes of circumstances capable of affording grounds of modification, commonly of aggravation or extenuation, to various genera of oft'ences: instance, Fremeditation, and conspiracy, on the one hand; Provocation received, and intoxication, on the other. This class will appear, but too plainly, as a kind of botch in comparison of the rest. But such is the fate of science, and more particularly of the moral branch; the distribution of things must in a great measure be dependent on their names: arrangement, the work of mature reflection, must be ruled by nomenclature, the work of popular caprice.
In the book of the laws, offences must therefore be treated CLASSES OF OFFENCES. 63 XI.
Let us see by what method these classes may Divisions of Class 1.
be farther sub-divided. First, then, with regard i. offences offences against individuals. son.'2— Proof as much as possible under their accustomed names. Ge- nerical terms, which are in continual use, and which express ideas for which there are no other terras in use, cannot safely be discarded. When any such occur, which cannot be brought to quadrate with such a plan of classification as appears to be most convenient upon the whole, what then is to be done? There seems to be but one thing; which is, to retain them, and annex them to the regular part of the system in the form of an appendix. Though they cannot, when entire, be made to rank under any of the classes esta- blished in the rest of the system, the divisions to which they give title may be broken down into lesser divisions, which may not be alike intractable. By this means, how discordant soever with the rest of the system they may appear to be at first sight, on a closer inspection they may be found con- formable.
This must inevitably be the case with the names of offences, Irregularity which are so various and universal in their nature, as to be °^ ''^'^ '^'^*^' capable, each of them, of doing whatever mischief can be done by any other kind or kinds of offences whatsoever. Offences of this description may well be called anomalous.
Such offences, it is plain, cannot but shew themselves —which equally intractable under every kind of system. Upon what- *^"".'j "°' ^® ever principle the system be constructed, they cannot, any any other of them, with any degree of propriety, be confined to any ^ one division. If, therefore, they constitute a blemish in the present system, it is such a blemish as could not be avoided but at the expence of a greater. The class they are here 64 CLASSES OF OFFENCES.
Chap. Jn the present period of existence, a man's ' — y:r^ being and well-being, his happiness and his se- Reputation. curity ', in a word, his pleasures and his immunity tion. 5- Per- from paius, are all dependant, more or less, in son and pro- ^ perty.— 6. the first placc, upon his own person; in the next reputation, placc, upoH the eiterwr objects that surround him. These objects are either things, or other persons. Under one or other of these classes must evidently be comprised every sort of exterior object, by means of which his interest can be affected. If then, by means of any offence, a man should on any occasion become a sufferer, it must be in one or other of two ways: 1. absolutely, to wit, imme- diately in his own person; in which case the offence may be said to be an offence against his person: or, 2. relatively by reason of some mate- rial^-^ relation which he bears to the beforethrown into will traverse, in its subordinate ramifiGations, the other classes and divisions of the present system: true, but so would they of any other. An irregularity, and that but a superficial one, is a less evil than continual error and contradiction. But even this slight deviation, which the fashion of language seemed to render unavoidable at the outset, we shall soon find occasion to correct as we advance. For though the first great parcels into which the offences of this class are divided are not referable, any of tliem, to any of the former classes, yet the subsequent lesser subdivisions are.
* See ch. vii. [Actions] iii. and xxiv. In what t I^> '^y reason of the word relation, this part of the divimanner ^\q^ should appear obscure, the unknown term may be got CLASSES OF OFFENCES. ©5 mentioned exterior objects may happen to bear, in Cuav. the way of casuality (See eh. vii. Actions, par. 24.) ' — v— to his happiness. Now in as far as a man is in a rid of in the following manner. Our ideas are derived, all ^"d P^'^ «^^- of them, from the senses; pleasurable and painful ones, the relation therefore, among the rest: consequently, from the operation °o'^^"eriIr" of sensible objects upon our senses. A man's happiness, object*, then, may be said to depend more or less upon the relation he bears to any sensible object, when such subject is in a way that stands a chance, greater or less, of producing to him, or averting from him, pain or pleasure. Now this, if at all, it must do in one or other of two ways; 1. In an active vidi^, properly so called; viz. by motion: or, 1. In a ■passive or quiescent way, by being moved to, or acted upon: and in either case, either, 1. in an immediate way, by acting upon, or being acted on by, the organs of sense, without the intervention of any other external object: or, y. in a more or less remote way, by acting upon, or being acted on by, some other external object, which (with the intervention of a greater or less number of such objects, and at the end of more or less considerable intervals of time) will come at length to act upon, or be acted upon by, those organs. And this is equally true, whether the external objects in question be things or persons. It is also equally true of pains and pleasures of the mind, as those of the body: all the dif- ference is, that in the production of these, the pleasure or pain may result immediately from the perception which it accompanies; in the production of those of the mind, it can- not result from the action of an object of sense, any other- wise than by association; to wit, by means of some connection which the perception has contracted with certain prior ones, lodged already in the memory *.
• See cl:. V. [Pleasures and Pains] xv. xxxi. Ch. i. [Motives] xxxlx. uute. VOL. n. F 65 CLASSES OF OFFENCES.
Chap, ^yay to deiivc either happiness or security from ' — ^' — ' any object which belongs to the class of things, such thing is said to be his proper tij, or at least he is said to have a property or an interest therein: an offence, therefore, which tends to lessen the facility he might otherwise have of deriving happiness or security from an object which be- longs to the class of things, may be stiled an oiFence against his property. With regard to persons, in as far as, from objects of this class, a man is in a way to derive happiness or security, it is in virtue of their services: in virtue of some services, which, by one sort of inducement or another, they may be disposed to render him*. Now, then, take any man, by way of example, and the disposition, whatever it may be, which he may be in to render you service, either has no other connection to give birth or support to it, than the general one which binds him to the whole species, or it has some other connection more particular. In the latter case, such a con- nection may be spoken of as constituting, in your favour, a kind of fictitious or incorporeal object of property, which is stiled your condition. An offence, therefore, the tendency of which is to lessen the facility you might otherwise have of deriving happiness from the services of a person thus specially connected with you, may be stiled See cli. X. [Motives.]
CLASSES OF OFFENCES. 67 an offence against your condition in life, or simply Chap. against your condition. Conditions in life must ' — v — ' evidently be as various as the relations by which they are constituted. This will be seen more particularly farther on. In the mean time, those of husband, wife, parent, child, master, servant, citizen of such or such a city, natural-born subject, of such or such a country, may answer the pur- pose of examples.
Where there is no such particular connection, or (what comes to the same thing) where the disposition, whatever it may be, which a man is in to render you service, is not considered as de- pending upon such connection, but simply upon the good-will he bears to you: in such case, in order to express what chance you have of de- riving a benefit from his services, a kind of fictitious object of property is spoken of, as being constituted in your favour, and is called your repuiation. An offence, therefore, the tendency of which is to lessen the facility you might other- wise have had of deriving happiness or security from the services of persons at large, whether connected with you or not by any special tie, may be stiled an offence against your reputation. It appears, therefore, that if by any offence an individual becomes a sufferer, it must be in one or other of the four points above-mentioned; viz. his person, his property, his condition in life, or his reputation. These sources of distinction then.
68 CLASSES OF OFFENCES.
may serve to form so many subordinate divisions. If any offences should be found to affect a person in more than one of these points at the same time, such offences may respectively be put under so many separate divisions; and such compound divisions may be subjoined to the preceding simple ones. The several divisions (simple and compound together) which are hereinafter esta- blished, stand as follows: 1. Offences against person. 2. Offences against reputation. 3. Of- fences against property. 4. Offences against condition. 5. Offences against person and ]>ro- perty together. 6. Offences against person and reputation together *.
XII.
Divisions of Next with regard to semi-public offences. Pain, 1. Offences cousidcred with reference to the time of the act limit'y.'' *^* from which it is liable to issue, must, it is evident, be either present, past, or future. In as far as it * Subsequent consideration has here suggested several alterations. The necessity of adding, to property, power, in the character of a distinguishable as well as valuable ob- ject or subject-matter of possession, has presented itself to view: and in regard to the fictitious entity here termed con- dition (for shortness instead of saying condition in life,) \thzs been observed to be a sort of composite object, compounded of property, reputation, power, and right to services. For this composite object the more proper place was therefore at the tail of the several simple ones I^ote by the Editor, J-uly, CLASSES OF OFFENCES. ^^ is either present or past, it cannot be the result of any act which comes under the description of a semi-pubhc offence: for if it be present or past, the individuals who experience, or who have experienced, it are assignable*. There remains that sort of mischief, which, if it ever come to exist at all, is as yet but future: mischief, thus circumstanced, takes the name of danger f. Now, then, when by means of the act of any person a whole neighbomrhood, or other class of persons, are exposed to danger, this danger must either be intentional on his part, or unintentional %. If unintentional, such danger, when it is converted into actual mischief, takes the name of a calamity '■ offences, productive of such danger, may be stiled semi-public offences operating through calamity: or, more briefly, offences through calamity. If the danger be intentional, in so much that it might be produced, and might convert itself into actual mischief, without the concurrence of any calamity, it may be said to originate in mere delinquency: offences, then, which, without the concurrence of any calamity, tend to produce such danger as disturbs the security of a local, or other subor- dinate class of persons, may be stiled semi-publi<^ offences operating max'ly by delinquency, or more briefly, offences of mere delinquency.
Supra, iv, note. t See ch. xii. [Consequences.]
I See ch. viii. [Intentionality.]
Cha I', XVI.
CLASSES) OF OFFENCES. XIII.
With regard to any farther sub-divisions, of- fences against calamity v/ill depend upon the lail^t'y.'du' nature of the several calamities to which man, and the several things that are of use to him, stand exposed. These will be considered in another place*.
XIV.
Offences nf Seiiii-public oifences of mere delinquency, will qv.cncy, follow the method of division applied to offences Iiow they correspond against individuals. It will easily be conceived, with the di-..
visions ot that whatever pain or inconvenience any giren leucts. individual may be made to suffer, to the danger of that pain or inconvenience may any number of individuals, assignable or not assignable, be ex- posed. Now there are four points or articles, as we have seen, in respect to which an individual may be made to suffer pain or inconvenience. If then, with respect to any one of them, the con- nection of causes and effects is such, that to the danger of suffering in that article a number of persons, who individually are not assignable, may.
* See B. I. tit. [Semi-public offences.] In the mean time that of pestilence may serve as an example. A man, without any intention of giving birth to such a calamity, may expose a neighbourhood to tlie danger of it, by breaking quarantine or violating any of those other preventive regulations which governments, at certain conjunctures, may find it expedient to have recourse to, for the purpose of guarding against such danger.
CLASSES OF OFFENCES. 71 by the delinquency of one person, be exposed, xvi! such article will form a ground of distinction on which a particular sub-division of semi-public offences may be established: if, with respect to any such article, no such effect can take place, that ground of distinction will lie for the present unoccupied: ready, however, upon any change of circumstances, or in the manner of viewing the subject, to receive a correspondent subdivision of offences, if ever it should seem necessary that any such offences should be created.
XV.
We come next to self-reg-ardincr offences; or. Divisions of more properly, to acts productive in the first in- incide with stance of no other than a self-regarding mischief: ciass i.
acts which, if in any instance it be thought fit to constitute them offences, will come under the