Latest ‘Collected Works’ volume published
By Tim Causer, on 2 August 2011
Hot on the heels of Writings on the Poor Laws (vol II) and Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jursprudence, we are delighted to announce that the latest volume of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham has been published by Oxford University Press.
Church-of-Englandism and its Catechism Examined – edited by James Crimmins (University of Western Ontario), and Catherine Fuller (Bentham Project, UCL) – was first published in 1818. It constitutes part of Bentham’s rigorous critique of the political, legal, and ecclesiastical establishment. Bentham argued that the Church’s educational system instilled habits of insincerity into the population, and protected a system of abuses which were profitable to clergymen and the ruling classes. Bentham called for the ‘euthanasia’ of the Church, since government-sponsored proposals to ‘reform’ the system of abuse would in fact propagate it.
This authoritative edition of the text includes and editorial introduction, and an appendix – published for the first time – examining the relationship between church and state. The volume also features comprehensive annotation, collations of extracts published during Bentham’s lifetime, and subject and name indexes.
For more information on the volume, and on ordering it, please see the OUP website