Athlone Press. 1970. xliv and 343, arid xlii and 342 pp. (inc. indices). ! 2 6 each.]IT is well known that Jeremy Bentham's most important and original eontribution t o analytical jurisprudence lay buried for more than a century-anda-half beneath the mountain of papers bequeathed t o University College, London, before being disinterred by the ingencity of Professor Everett of Columbia University, who subsequently published the work under the title The h i t s of Jurisprudence Defined in 1945. Although high praise is due t o Professor Everett for his pioneering work, i t was obvious that his edition stood in need of substantial revision, and there could be no happier circumstance than the choice of a new editor in the person of Professor H a r t . As the most distinguished analytical jurist of our day and a worthy successor of Jeremy Bentham himself Professor H a r t has brought to bear both painstaking and loving scholarship as well as liis own magisterial command of general and legal phbilosophy to produce what must be universally recognised a s the definitive edition of Bentham's great work.Yet for all its importance both for our understanding of Bentham's thought as well as for the contribution that i t can still make t o the jurisprudence of our own day, it cannot be denied that the book is both tough and indigestible for even the most determined and informed of readers. Partly this is the result of the unfinished character of the work itself, but the familiar defects of Bentham's style (though sometimes relieved by pungent wit and vivid metaphors) also provide a pretty dense barrier even for a perceptive reader. As he approached the conclusion of his Introduction to the Principles of Norals and Legislation it had become increasingly apparent to Bentham that no far-reaching reform of the law, even though based on the true principles of the science of legislation as he conceived it, could be adequately attained without an understanding of the conceptual framework of the legal system. This he therefore set out t o explore i n depth in the present work. It was characteristic of the originality of his mind that he chose t o build up his analytical structure out of the seemingly simple question of the nature of the distinction between civil and penal law. I n the course of serutinising the implications of this distinction Bentham became persuaded that it was necessary t o create a whole new branch of logic, which he referred to as the "logic of the will." I n this way he anticipated many of the developments in the field which the modern logician refers to as " deontic " logic.This definitive edition of Of Lnws in General will finally lay to rest any lingering notion that it was Bentham's disciple, John Austin, who built up an original structure of analytical and conceptual jurisprudence out of fragmentary suggestions thrown off by the master in the course of his delving into the science of legislation and the projects of law reform dear t o his heart. As Professor H a r t has himself written of the present work, "...

SHALL advance the thesis that if there are any moral rights at all, it follows that there is at least one natural right, the equal right of all men to be free. By saying that there is this right, I mean that in the absence of certain special conditions which are consistent with the right being an equal right, any adult human being capable of choice (i) has the right to forbearance on the part of all others from the use of coercion or restraint against him save to hinder coercion or restraint and (2) is at liberty to do (i.e., is under no obligation to abstain from) any action which is not one coercing or restraining or designed to injure other persons.2 I have two reasons for describing the equal right of all men to be free as a natural right; both of them were always emphasized by the classical theorists of natural rights. (i) This right is one which all men have if they are capable of choice; they have it qua men and not only if they are members of some society or stand in some special relation to each other. (2) This right is not created or conferred by men's voluntary action; I was first stimulated to think along these lines by Mr. Stuart Hampshire, and I have reached by different routes a conclusion similar to his. 2 Further explanation of the perplexing terminology of freedom is, I fear, necessary. Coercion includes, besides preventing a person from doing what he chooses, making his choice less eligible by threats; restraint includes any action designed to make the exercise of choice impossible and so includes killing or enslaving a person. But neither coercion nor restraint includes competition. In terms of the distinction between "having a right to" and " being at liberty to," used above and further discussed in Section I, B, all men may have, consistently with the obligation to forbear from coercion, the liberty to satisfy if they can such at least of their desires as are not designed to coerce or injure others, even though in fact, owing to scarcity, one man's satisfaction causes another's frustration. In conditions of extreme scarcity this distinction between competition and coercion will not be worth drawing; natural rights are only of importance "where peace is possible" (Locke). Further, freedom (the absence of coercion) can be valueless to those victims of unrestricted competition too poor to make use of it; so it will be pedantic to point out to them that though starving they are free. This is the truth exaggerated by the Marxists whose identification of poverty with lack of freedom confuses two different evils. '75

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