EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THE substance of this treatise, drawn up from the most unfinished of all Mr. Bentham's Manuscripts, has already been published in French by M. Dumont; and considering the very extensive diffusion of that tongue, the present work, but for one consideration, might seem almost superfluous.

The original papers contain many applications of the writer's principles to British Institutions and British interests; which, with a view to continental circulation, have been judiciously omitted by M. Dumont.

To the English Reader, the matter thus omitted cannot but be highly important and

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instructive. With the view of enabling him to supply the deficiency, and to obtain separately a treatise of general importance, which in the French work has somewhat unfortunately been appended to one of more limited interest,—namely, that, on the mode of conducting business in Legislative Assemblies, -the Editor has made the present attempt.

To have done justice to the original matter, the whole ought to have been re-written; this, the Editor's other pursuits did not allow him leisure to accomplish, and he has been able to do little more than arrange the papers,

the

and strike out what was redundant.-In preparing the work for the press, Mr. Bentham has had no share ;-for whatever therefore may be esteemed defective in the matter, or objectionable in the manner, the Editor is solely responsible. Still, he thought it better that the work should appear, even in its present shape, than not appear at all; and having devoted to it such portion of his time as could

be spared from the intervals of a life of labour, he hopes he shall not be without acknowledgement, from those who are competent to appreciate the value of whatsoever comes from the great founder of the science of morals and legislation.

M. Dumont's work contains an examination of the declaration of the Rights of Man, as proclaimed by the French Constituent Assembly. This forms no part of the present volume, to the subject of which, indeed,-Fallacies employed in debate,—it is not strictly pertinent. But, in fact, the original papers have been mislaid, and they seemed to lose so much of their spirit in a translation from the French, that the contents of the additional chapter would not compensate for the additional bulk and expense of the book.

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