date

[036-160v] 1821 Dec. 19 Codification
[036-160v]

1821 Dec. 19

Codification Proposal

'.10 Factit s remuneration bad

/'.5. Admission Universal/

VI

2

By the votaries of that spurious and barbarous substitute to law which ought never to be mentioned without reproach, nor can ever be mentioned with reproach adequate to its mischievousness, - institutions have been set on foot for everlasting augmentation of it, on pretence of everlasting elucidation institutions rendering darkness thicker and thicker, under the notion of augmenting light. To institutions of this sort, the appellation of a School of Jurisprudence may without impropriety be, and probably has been, applied. But how opposite in their nature are any such Schools of Jurisprudence and the here proposed School of Legislation! In that case money expended and the result a nuisance: a finite added to an already infinite nuisance: in this case, no money expended and the result pure good. In that case explanations are heaped upon explanations - explanations of that which not being in existence - not having any determinate words belonging to it - is essentially and for ever incapable of being explained. In that case the object of each founder and of each lecturer is - that with a view to judicial decision, his new matter thus poured in should, by as many men as possible, be read and studied in addition to the old: as if the greater the mass the easier it would be for the citizen to take it into his memory, and hold it there for use. How different is the case with the expected produce of the proposed legislation School! Having no pretence to be taken for law - having no pretence to be taken for a guide to judicial decision - no memory is endeavoured to be loaded with it: to him who feels disposed to apply his mind to the consideration of new matter destined for the field of law - to him and him alone is it adressed. True it is that, under a government in a nation in which the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the real end of every thing that is done in the way of government - true it is that in any such nation not an individual is there to whose situation it is incompetent to look into the body of the law in any of its parts with a legislator's eye. But this is what he may do or leave undone with equal security till he actually does so, no claim will the produce of the legislation School, or any part of it put in for his attention: and whatever part does, he will without danger of personal inconvenience be at liberty to look to or to leave unlooked to as he feels inclined.
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