ABSTRACT
I In 1838 when John Stuart Mill wrote his famous essay on Bentham,1 Bowring's edition of Bentham's works, which included much not previously published, was still in progress. Mill says that at this time 'except for the more slight of his works' Bentham's readers had been few. It seems that the completion in 1843 of the Bowring edition did not vastly increase their numbers. In 1864 Richard Hildreth, an American lawyer and moralist, embarked on the strange project of translating back from French into English Dumont's very free version of some of Bentham's writings on the Principles of Legislation. Hildreth tells us in the preface to his translation that he was inspired to publish it because, in spite of their fame abroad, Bentham's works 'in England and America, though frequently spoken of, are little read'. This is still true; and a very great proportion of Bentham's published work has for long been relegated to an intellectual lumber room visited only by the historian. It is clear that the discouraging close print and double columns of the Bowring edition are not solely responsible for this. Even when the new and splendid edition to be published by the Athlone Press of the University of London becomes available, the reading of the largely unread Bentham will not prove easy. The difficulties are well known: so many of the major controversies to which his writings relate are dead or transformed; so many of the reforms demanded in the name of Utility have long been conceded; often only an historian with a detailed knowledge of the period could judge how far the Benthamite reforms which were not adopted would have been an improvement and what the total effect was of those reforms which were adopted. There is, moreover, along with the diverting wit and splendid invective, much eccentric and exasperating pedantry in Bentham's later style with its proliferation of invented 'Greek -sprung' technical terms and his exploration in infinite detail of every project.
