049-170.xml

Title: [1805 Evidence Introd. Jurisprud]

Description: 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprud

Ch. III. Lawyer's Art

''. Forged [...?]

Among /At the head/ the causes which prevent jurisprudential law from being any thing better than a wretched succeedance[?] to /miserable makeshift for/ statutory law we have already had occasion to observe the circumstance of its origin - the incompetence of the authenticity /source/ from whence it issues. Under every constitution this incompetence is evidenced by the consideration that the individuals whose will real or imagined is thus invested with law /endowed with the effective force of law/ are so circumstanced, as not to be qualified either by power or by practice for considering the field of legislation in any of these points of view in which it is necessary and customary for the legitimate legislator to be continually /constantly/ contemplating it. Under the popular constitution of the British Island /Britain/ as already observed this incompetence is further enhanced, and that in a prodigious degree by the consideration /circumstance/ that, whereas in the framing of statutory law /determination of the general purport/ and character of statutory law, the body of the people have a very considerable and effective share, in the determination of the general purport and character of jurisprudential law, the body of the people have no share whatever, not more than in the most /purest/ absolute monarchy that is to be found.

What on this occasion has been the recourse of the man of law? I speak of Britain here /The present topic is confined to Britain,/ as the only country on which on the strict ground of the virtues[?] upon constitutional principles it is competent to a lawyer to place this /carry a/ circumstance of this sort to the account of advantage. What [...?] in speaking of British law has been his recource? To deny the existence of the sun at noon day while his eyes are smarting under its lustre: in the praise lavished upon his god /goddess/ /idol/, to speak of the popularity of his /its/ origin, as a /property/ /qualification/ not only belonging to him /it/ but possessed by /appertaining to/ law enjoyed in a supereminent degree.

One thing, and but one thing, was wanting to the audacity of the imposture: and that was to deny that the body of the people have any sort of share or influence in the production /fabricating/ of statutory law. In /Can/ the part they /parties they excuse[?]/ take in the composition of statutory law be in any other respect more notorious, than the fact of them having no part whatsoever in the framing of jurisprudential law?

049-165.xml

Title: [8 August 1805 Evidence Introd]

Description: 8 August 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprudent

Ch. III Lawyer's Art

For an exemplification of the arts practised on this ground by lawyers /lawyercraft/, it will not be either necessary, or so much as of use , to look to any one but /any further than to/ Blackstone. He is the source to /oracle from/ /channel through/ which whosoever thinks it worth his while to think at all /trouble himself/ about law, derives /draws/ whatever notions /conceptions/ he thinks it worth his while to frame concerning the complexion and character of jurisprudential law. No other mind can present so fair a title as this parent mind to exceptence as the character of the legitimate representative of the professional part of the public mind: all other books put together have no so extensive a circulation as that one book. On everything that to common law dead and living, the works of all other authors put together do not contribute so huge a share as his to the formation of the public mind. Scarce any /Not that, unless by a miracle, any/ other lawyer ever speaks of jurisprudential law without bestowing on it the homage of his praise /admiration/: but with all his exertions in this line: but no other lawyer in the extravagance of his adoration ever came up /went beyond/ /could ever venture to outfly/ the extravagance of Blackstone. He if any one /man/, may be regarded as the representative, the genuine representative, the foreman, the chairman, the mouthpiece, the speaker of the profession. After him to bring to [...?] on this /any such/ occasion the language of any other dead author would be useless, if any living author, useless and invidious /any other author, would if he were dead be useless, if living/.

If praise, lavished on a bad system, for the purpose of keeping out a better be matter of imputation, what other quarter could any imputation be fixed with less danger of injustice?

049-083.xml

Title: [14 July 1805 Evidence Introd]

Description: 14 July 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprudent

Ch. II. Vices

But though the security from this quarter should be ever so much greater than upon an unprejudiced examination it would be found to be, it would be nothing /little/ to the purpose. For in regard to degrees of arbitrariness, the question is - not between English judicature and the judicature of other countries, the standard of obedience being in both instances in the state of jurisprudential, or in both in the state of statutory, law, but between English judicature under jurisprudential, and /the same/ English judicature under statutory law.