In the two related works in this volume, Bentham offers a detailed critique of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-9). In "Comment on the Commentaries," on which Bentham began work in 1774, he exposes the fallacies which he claims to have detected in Blackstone, and criticizes the theory of the Common Law. He goes on to provide important reflections on the nature of law, and more particularly on the nature of customary and of statute law, and on judicial interpretation.
A Fragment on Government, which was published in 1776, was detached from the "Comment on the...