 Language had not been especially important to the  natural law  theorists whose views Bentham despised. They accounted for a law as a certain sort of reason. From that perspective, philosophy of language has no special role in explaining the nature of law. Philosophy of language cannot explain the nature of reasons; it has the ancillary role of explaining the possibility of communicating reasons and the possibility of creating reasons by the use of language (so that natural law theorists have the same reason as others to seek a good account of the legal effects of the use of language, and of the role of courts in resolving disputes over it). Bentham, by contrast, fastened on the ‘sensible’ phenomenon of a perceptible, intelligible linguistic act for his purpose of expounding the nature of law by reference to empirical phenomena.