The age of Law Reform and the age of Jeremy Bentham are one and the same. He is the father of the most important of all the branches of Reform, the leading and ruling department of human improvement... He it was who first made the mighty step of trying the whole provisions of our jurisprudence by the test of expediency, fearlessly examining how far each part was connected with the rest; and with a yet more undaunted courage, inquiring how far even its most consistent and symmetrical arrangements were framed according to the principle which should pervade a Code of Laws—their adaptation to the circumstances of society, to the wants of men, and to the promotion of human happiness.Not only was he thus eminently original among the lawyers and the legal philosophers of his own country; he might be said to be the first legal philosopher that had appeared in the world.