Jurisprudence.
TABLES AND NOTES.
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In the Preface (p. 24, vol. i. ante) to this work, I mentioned the Tables which Mr. Austin drew out and distributed to the members of his class. I also gave, in his own words, his account of them, and of his purpose in constructing them. I added, that they were lamentably incomplete, but that I was not without a faint hope that some of the materials destined for the Construction of the missing Tables might be found among his papers. I have clung to this hope with a tenacity which there was little to justify; but after the most minute search and anxious inquiry, I am compelled to relinquish it.
Notwithstanding the incontestable value of the following Tables and Notes, it is not without infinite pain that I submit them to the public in their actual state; especially since I have the full persuasion that some at least of those which are wanting were either prepared or in course of preparation. As I always corrected the press with him, I ought to be able to recollect exactly what were printed, but several circumstances, which, for his justification, it may not be impertinent to mention, tended to efface any distinct memory of them from my mind. After the close of his Lectures in 1832, he was in such a state of suffering and depression that my only solicitude was to keep everything out of his way that could remind him of his abortive projects and frustrated hopes; and I carefully avoided all mention of his Lectures. The copies of the Tables, excepting the few he had distributed, were left in the hands of the printer, and remained there till very recently.
In the Preface I have mentioned the several occupations in which Mr. Austin engaged. To these successively he devoted all the time and thought of which incessant attacks of illness left him master; and after eight years passed in a fruitless and exhausting struggle, he was compelled to abandon it and to seek some mitigation of his sufferings abroad.
Thus there never was a time at which he Could have been urged to Complete this laborious work with the smallest chance of success. Nor was it ever alluded to, till within the last few years, when he Could talk with calmness of his failures and disappointments. He 918one day said to me, ‘I have been looking over those Tables of mine, and I may say to you that I am really surprised at my own work.’ And he went on to describe what had excited in him the rare emotion of self-applause. Thus encouraged, I did venture to express my ardent desire that he would finish them, and return to the work in which he acknowledged his own mastery. But he only replied, ‘It is too late—At that time I had it all before me. The time is over. Besides, who would care for them?’
This was the last, I believe it was the only time, we ever spoke of them, and it was decisive.
And thus, after the lapse of thirty troubled years, I can do nothing but either suppress what competent judges deem so conclusive a proof of his ability and learning (and what, above all, he himself thought admirable), or give the fragments which exist of the complete structure he had planned.
It appears clear from the numerous references to them which will be found in the following pages, that the missing Tables were in existence. Whether any manuscript was left in the printer’s hands, and, in so long a lapse of time, destroyed, or whether he himself, dissatisfied, as he was so apt to be, with what he had done, destroyed it, it is impossible for me to conjecture. I have carefully examined every portion of the manuscripts. I find a great number of notes which were probably intended to be used in the completion of this work, but nothing that can be applied to that purpose by any hand but his—S. A.