Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham: Official Aptitude Maximized, Expense Minimized

The essays which Bentham collected together for publication in 1830 under the title of Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized, written at various times between 1810 and 1830, deal with the means of achieving efficient and economical government. In considering a wide range of themes in the fields of constitutional law, public finance, and legal reform, Bentham places the problem of official corruption at the centre of his analysis. He contrasts hisown recommendations for good administration, which he had fully developed in his magisterial Constitutional Code, with the severe deficiencies he saw in English practice. The core of the volume consists of four major essays directed against the principles and policies of four leading statesmen: Edmund Burke,George Rose, Robert Peel, and Lord Chancellor Eldon. Of particular concern to Bentham were the abuses sanctioned by the judges and their officials in the Westminster Hall courts, which, he argues, resulted in the denial of justice to the majority of the population. In this volume, Bentham not only displays the precise logical reasoning for which he is well known, but also his considerable skills as a rhetorician of reform.

'The volume is to be welcomed by all interested in Bentham. Philip Schofield's scholarly introduction skilfully locates the constituent essays in the context of Bentham's work and explains their background and impact.' Bhikhu Parekh, University of Hull, Political Studies (1994), XLII, 'the eighteenth volume of the new Bentham Edition, the tenth to be published by Oxford ... It exhibits the very high standards of scholarship, collation, and presentation now established in that edition. Full explanations of the terms of art and historical references appearing in the text make available to the modern reader Bentham's often historically parochial references and the edition is rounded off with an absolutely invaluable 65 pages of subject and name indexes.' Iaian Hampsher-Monk, University of Exeter, Utilitas, Vol. 6, No. 2, November 1994, Philip Schofield has established new standard in Bentham scholarship. The index too is thorough and helpful, while the forty-five pages of collations should be more than enough to satisfy even the most stringent and exacting of textual critics.