Austin, John, 1790–1859, English jurist. He served (1826–32) as professor of jurisprudence at the Univ. of London, and his lectures were published (with additional material) as The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832, repr. 1967, 3 vol.) and Lectures on Jurisprudence (1869, 5th ed. 1911). These books presented a comprehensive analysis of the principles underlying all legal systems. Austin argued that law was the expression of the will of the sovereign authority and was not to be confused with the dictates of religion and ethics. Austin's work—in part stemming from that of Jeremy Bentham Bentham, Jeremy, 1748–1832, English philosopher, jurist, political theorist, and founder of utilitarianism . Educated at Oxford, he was trained as a lawyer and was admitted to the bar, but he never practiced; he devoted himself to the scientific analysis of
..... Click the link for more information. —had a strong influence on many later legal theorists, including John Stuart Mill Mill, John Stuart, 1806–73, British philosopher and economist. A precocious child, he was educated privately by his father, James Mill. In 1823, abandoning the study of law, he became a clerk in the East India company, where he rose to become head of the
..... Click the link for more information. . His wife, Sarah Taylor Austin, was a well-known translator.

Bibliography

See J. Brown, ed., The Austinian Theory of Law (1906).

Austin, John

(born March 3, 1790, Creeting Mill, Suffolk, Eng.—died Dec. 1859, Weybridge, Surrey) British jurist. Although initially unsuccessful in his law practice (1818–25), his analytical mind and intellectual honesty impressed colleagues, and he was named the first professor of jurisprudence at University College, London (1826). Distinguished men attended his lectures, but he failed to attract students, and he resigned his chair in 1832. His writings, especially The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), sought to distinguish law from morality. He also helped to define jurisprudence as the analysis of fundamental legal concepts, as distinct from the criticism of legal institutions, which he called the “science of legislation.” His work, largely unrecognized in his lifetime, influenced later jurists, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.