date

2 August 1805 Evidence Introd
2 August 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprud.

Ch. II Vices

''. 6. Fixation incompetancy

The jurisprudential learning of larceny is a topic which in more occasions /instances/ than one there will be occasion /has been need/ to bring to view. Attachment imaginary or real, natural or fictitious, if the thing taken to the main body of the worth, tameness or wildness in the case of this or that species of animal, value in way of exchange more or less fixed and marketable, all these may serve as examples of fixation made by jurisprudential law under the auspices of Corruption or folly /caprice/ in the way of exception, condition or limitation taking the thief into the privation of the law, and putting the proprietor - or as lawyers used to say the true men as he is called out of it.

In a word let him who will undertake to say which disposition is in jurisprudential law most conspicuous - the disposition to /.../ or the disposition to make /annex/ rash and groundless exceptions conditions and limitations, or the disposition to establish equally rash general rules within any of those exceptions, conditions and limitations which are /would be/ necessary to reduce them within the limits of utility and reason.
Similar Items
  • Title: [2 August 1805 Evidence Introd]
    Description: 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.
  • Title: [5[?] August 1805 Evidence Ch]
    Description: 5[?] August 1805

    Evidence

    Ch. II. Vices

    ''. 6. Fixation in competency

    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/
  • Title: [21 Aug 1804 Evidence Introd]
    Description: 21 Aug 1804

    Evidence

    Introd. Jurisprudential

    Ch. 2. Sources

    ''.5. dictates of Utility

    '' Proportionable use made of the principle of utility in different branches of jurisprudential law.

    The penal branch is that in the composition of which the principle of utility will /must/ have had the greatest share: especially that which concerns offences against individuals. Offences striking against the person, property, (known and acknowledged property in whatsoever shape and whence so ever derived) reputation and condition in life of individuals would in this way receive their punishment and virtual prohibition, as the several instances examples [...?] of the several species of delinquency happened to present themselves.

    In the course of this process a multitude of pretences every one more idle than another for refusing to annex punishment to delinquency - for refusing /pro tanto/ in the several cases the protection of the law for person, property, reputation or condition in life against the injuries respectively in question, were brought forward and allowed. In the case of offences against property for example - adhesion of the subject matter to the freehold - wildness /original wildness of disposition/, or original want of value on the part of the subject matter (it being an animal) and the like.

    If by all these exceptions of this cast - and there is no dearth /scarcity/ of them the use of the law was diminished, the bulk of it at any rate was encreased: and in this way, like many a worthless human creature, in default of other merits, it became respectable by its opulence.