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John Stuart Mill reviewed John Austin's posthumously published Lectures on Jurisprudence in the Edinburgh Review in 1863. He compared Bentham with Austin, assigning an essentially destructive role to the former and a constructive role to the latter. Bentham had carried out the necessary task of sweeping away the absurdities and irrationalities which characterized the study of the law, while Austin had then carried out the equally indispensable task of classifying, defining, and distinguishing legal ideas. This is puzzling, since Mill, who had edited Bentham's Rationale of Judicial Evidence, must have been aware of Bentham's extensive proposals for legal reform and of his commitment to classification and definition. Moreover, while Mill had been critical of aspects of Bentham's thought in the immediate aftermath of his mental crisis in the 1830s, there is evidence that he later regretted these remarks. Indeed, he reaffirmed his commitment to Benthamite utilitarianism in Utilitarianism which appeared in 1861. This paper investigates the following question: why did Mill lavishly praise the inferior and derivative work of Austin, and go on to suggest that Bentham's work was of no relevance to legal reform?

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-4830-9_12

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