date

2 August 1805 Evidence Introd
2 August 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprudent

Ch. II. Vices

''. 6. Fixation incompetancy

By the above examplifications /illustrations/ the incompetency of jurisprudential law to the purpose of fixation, to fixation in all manner of ways will perhaps be regarded as sufficiently demonstrated /proved/ as well as explained. In the same say may its incompetency be shewn in respect of all the other subject /other subjects/ of fixation: modes of quantity of other sorts, modes of quality, degrees (which have been defined /not inaptly defined/ quantities of quality: to which may be added species of things and exceptions, limitations and conditions to regulations of all sorts, whether obligatory or de-obligatory.

To carry the demonstration through /over/ all these tracts, would be to traverse in all directions the whole field of jurisprudence, which is as much as to say the whole field of legislation. Such labour will not be expected to be performed for this /so/ limited a purpose as that of the present Essay.

In cases in which profit and power are concerned, averseness to doing business is by no means a certain /a universal/ accompaniment of the incapacity of doing it well. Incompetent as Jurisprudential law /the jurisprudentialist/ is to the operation of applying exceptions conditions and limitations to general rules, no backwardness on his part as to the execution of this part /these branches/ of the task of fixation has ever been observerable in his practice. The principle of irrelevant decision is in every application of it, a system of exceptions, conditions.

Take the whole learning of heresay and limitations (all these operations are materially reducable to each other) a system of exceptions, conditions and limitations arbitrarily applied to the general rule which requires in all cases the punctual fulfillment of the engagements taken by the substantive branch of the law.
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    Ch. Vice 6th Incompetancy in respect of fixations of all sorts: liquidation of quantities, of number, weight, measure and degree: establishment of exceptions, conditions, limitations.

    In relation of this important function the compleat competancy of Statute law the helpless inaptitude of jurisprudential law will, at the very first mention, be with more or less distinctness perciptible /visible/ to every eye. Take them at the best, and though the supposition be repugnant to the very essence of jurisprudential law suppose the rules of it to be given in tenor as well as purport, still for want of fixation, they hang and float as it were in the air. On each revision a scale of indefinite length has extended under them: they hover over it, but never touch it for want of a definite point to fix upon. Be number of degrees in the scale ever so great, no one degree can ever be found, on which the rule can alight with propriety, to the exclusion of those that are above it and below it. What is the consequence? that, independently of /over and above/ all others, this one defect is enough to banish certainty, which is as much as to say to banish justice from the dispensations of jurisprudential law, from an indefinitely extensive portion of the field of law./judicature/
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