date

7 July 1805 Evidence 6. Dictates
7 July 1805

Evidence

6. Dictates of Utility

But were /although/ the usage made of the dictates of this principal in the way /manufacture/ of jurisprudential law, understood at any modern period, were so great, they are employed as it is in this species of manufacture, it could not the less which admitted upon the use of the sources of jurisprudential law, be refused a place among the sources of that uncertainty which is essential to it. For so long as the authority or precedents is given to any decisions, which whether were adverse to utility from the beginning or are become so by lapse of time, at the same time that the dictates of acknowledged utility are also treated with regard /experience regard on their part/ so long there exist two opposite fountains from either of which it may happen that the decision shall be drawn.

Where in /one[?]/ regard to the self same point, an arrangement comes to be taken in the way of statutory law, no such uncertainty has any plan, no legislator, on the occasion of any new proposed law, regards himself as bound by any preceeding law: contrary of the two laws being established, viz: the old law and the new law passed in relation to the same matter, no uncertainty nor [...?] obtains /presents itself/ in regard to the question which of those shall carry with it the decision of the Judges.

Note

although instead of being [...?] called at the bottom of the Council Table, it were seated there in the character of perpetual President
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