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COMMENTARY ON FILANGIERI’S WORK
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BENJAMIN CONSTANT
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This book is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a foundation established to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.
The cuneiform inscription that serves as our logo and as a design element in Liberty Fund books is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.
Translation, introduction, editorial matter, and index © 2015 by Liberty Fund, Inc.
Frontispiece: Portrait of Benjamin Constant by Lina Vallier (fl. 1836–52), from the Musée du Château de Versailles. Photo credit: Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.
This eBook edition published in 2019.
eBook ISBNs:
978-1-61487-273-3
978-1-61487-649-6
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Contents
Introduction, by Alan S. Kahan
Translator’s Note
Commentary on Filangieri’s Work
Part One
CHAPTER ONE: Plan of This Commentary
CHAPTER TWO: From an Epigram by Filangieri against Improvement in the Art of War
CHAPTER THREE: On Encouragements for Agriculture
CHAPTER FOUR: On the Conversion of Rulers to Peace
CHAPTER FIVE: On the Salutary Revolution Which Filangieri Foresaw
CHAPTER SIX: On the Union of Politics and Legislation
CHAPTER SEVEN: On the Influence Which Filangieri Attributes to Legislation
CHAPTER EIGHT: On the State of Nature, the Formation of Society, and the True Goal of Human Associations
CHAPTER NINE: On Errors in Legislation
CHAPTER TEN: Some Remarks by Filangieri on the Decline of Spain
CHAPTER ELEVEN: On Filangieri’s Observations about France
CHAPTER TWELVE: On the Decline Filangieri Predicted for England
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Part Two
CHAPTER ONE: Object of This Second Part
CHAPTER TWO: On the Black Slave Trade
CHAPTER THREE: On Population
CHAPTER FOUR: Continuation of the Same Subject
CHAPTER FIVE: On Malthus’s System Relating to Population
CHAPTER SIX: Some Writers Who Have Exaggerated M. Malthus’s System
CHAPTER SEVEN: On a Contradiction by Filangieri
CHAPTER EIGHT: On the Division of Properties
CHAPTER NINE: On the Grain Trade
CHAPTER TEN: On Agriculture as a Source of Wealth
CHAPTER ELEVEN: On the Protection Given Industry
CHAPTER TWELVE: A New Proof of Filangieri’s Fundamental Mistake
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: On Guilds and Masters
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: On Privileges for Industry
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: On Taxation
Part Three
CHAPTER ONE: On Criminal Prosecution Confided Exclusively to a Magistrate
CHAPTER TWO: On Secret Indictments
CHAPTER THREE: On Denunciation
CHAPTER FOUR: New Thoughts on the Idea of Giving Each Citizen the Right to Prosecute
CHAPTER FIVE: On the Right to Prosecute Given to Servants, When It Is a Question of Crimes against Society
CHAPTER SIX: That the Prosecuting Magistrate Should Be Responsible, If Not for the Truth, at Least for the Legitimacy of the Accusation
CHAPTER SEVEN: On Prisons
CHAPTER EIGHT: On the Shortening of Legal Procedures
CHAPTER NINE: On Defense Witnesses
CHAPTER TEN: On Judgment by Juries
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CHAPTER ELEVEN: On the Death Penalty
CHAPTER TWELVE: On Convict Labor
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: On Deportation
Part Four
CHAPTER ONE: On Education
CHAPTER TWO: On Religion
CHAPTER THREE: Of the Growth of Polytheism
CHAPTER FOUR: On the Priesthood
CHAPTER FIVE: On the Mysteries
CHAPTER SIX AND LAST: Conclusion
Index
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Benjamin Constant’s Commentary on Filangieri’s Work (1822–24) discusses almost every important political and social question that Constant, one of the most important liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century, ever discussed. It bears on politics, economics, religion, and criminology. It contains extensive commentary on Montesquieu, Malthus, Turgot, and Adam Smith. It summarizes the mature views of an important writer who often changed his mind—and yet all this has not preserved the work from being out of print in French from 1824 until 2004, nor prompted anyone to translate it into English before now. While the Commentary has not been ignored by scholars, it has never received the attention given Constant’s Principles of Politics, his writings on religion, or his novel Adolphe. Why? The reasons owe something both to the character of the book and of its putative subject, the work of Constant’s not-quite-contemporary Gaetano Filangieri.
Filangieri published the first volume of The Science of Legislation in 1780, when he was only 28. The fifth volume (of a projected seven) was unfinished when the author died of tuberculosis, in 1788. All the volumes were translated and acclaimed throughout Europe and even the Thirteen Colonies. Benjamin Franklin read Filangieri