date

26 Jan 1805 Evidence Securities
26 Jan 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Procedure Technical

'' Cause Lawyers Interests

''. Cause of the deviations of the technical from the natural system - sinister interest of the men of law.

All systems /every system/ of procedure, having lawyers for its authors, has of course in so far as the authors /workmen/ were at liberty to be [...?] by their own /particular/ interest in the construction of the work, had the promotion of that interest for their main object or end in view. If the [...?] administration of justice, that is the fulfilment of the promises made /engagements taken/ by the substantive branch of the body of the law, had any concern in the business the interest of the community in respect to the fulfilment of those engagements, it has been only in the way of practice, and in the character of a collateral and misintended[?] /scarcely intended/ though happily in some /a considerable/ degree an inseparable result.

So far as the paths that led to the public object /interest/ and the sinister path that led to the private and professional object happened to coincide, in so far the public object would in this state of things naturally be pursued: so far as there are[?] any want of coincidence between the two courses /paths/, the public object would be sure to be sacrificed /made a sacrifice/, in so far as the state of the public mind times admitted of such sacrifice.

Whichever of the two rival systems we were to look to, the Roman and the English, we should find the state of the times /public mind/ favourable in the highest /a very high/ degree to all such sacrifices. In both instances, the work has been not least in the way of statute law even[?] [...?], but hammered out and patched together by almost [...?] degrees, during a course /in the course/ of successive ages, and with little or no check from any capacity of superintendence on the part of that public for whose use the article was pretended to be made.
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  • Title: [24 March 1805 Evidence Securities]
    Description: 24 March 1805

    Evidence

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    ''. Summary & Regular#

    Between technical and regular there is no such coincidence as between their respective opposites, natural procedure and summary. By technical /the technical system of/ procedure I understand that system of procedure - every system of procedure that has had men of law for its authors - men in law left free to act /fashion the system/ by their own powers, in pursuit of their own personal, (what comes to the same thing) professional, and like in either case sinister, ends. By regular procedure is generally and perhaps universally understood - understood by lawyers themselves, by whom the names characteristic of the distinction between the two systems was invented, that same /self-same/ system which has just been mentioned under the name of technical. Whatever application and extent the natural - the in general summary system has received, has been given to it, with or without their approval concurrence /cooperation/, but at any rate against their interests, against their prejudices, and in spite of their reclamations. In their vocabulary, to the very man[?] [...?] the name summary is evidently /manifestly/ attached itself. By summary they understand, and wish others to understand, precipitate, and through precipitation imperfect: a system that in proportion as it is summary wants something of that which is /is deficient in those ingredients which are/ necessary to its perfection /being compleatly suited to its purpose/. That it is regarded by them with an evil eye is manifest not only by its opposition to their sinister interests - not only by their sollicitous[?] [...?], + but by this plain /simple/ and universal fact - the more they have taken[?] to avoid the adoption of /copying of/ it, notwithstanding its under[...?] possession of that [...?] of which as far as can be without the reality and the merit they are on every occasion so sollicitous to obtain the praise.
  • Title: [24 March 1805 Evidence Securities]
    Description: 24 March 1805

    Evidence

    Securities

    Ch. Procedure Technical

    ''.2.

    Turning now /If now we turn/ to the groupe of established systems /established systems of judicial procedure/, a prospect of a very different appearance /complection/ will rise to view: deviations, not limited to two in number, and neither recurred[?] to without sufficient /[...?]/ /manifest/ and /as well as/ necessary cause, neither deviation less reconcilable them the very straightest course, to the aggregate of the ends of justice, deviations not thus few not thus necessary - but infinite in number, infinite in complication and agreeing on nothing but their opposition to every one of the ends of justice.

    To distinguish from what is regarded as conformable to the course of nature to natural conceptions what is regarded as inconformable to it /their standard/, the word technical is in established use. Techno[?] is in the original french the word for art /[...?]/, inhuman[?], and, if the art be regarded as directed to an improper end, artifice. In natural history, a technical classification is opposed to a natural one, is under the purpose[?] of over-ruling necessity, the work of human /honest/ weakness, striving to lift up the veil of mystery spread by nature over her works /mysterious difficulty spread over the works of nature as if to cover her designs/. In jurisprudence more particularly in English jurisprudence every arrangement to which the word technical has ever been applied will be found to be the work originally of dishonest artifice, labouring in a distrust of its own creation in pursuit of its own sinister ends, repugnant /set up in opposition/ to the only legitimate ends of judicature, the ends of justice. The deviation, palpable as it is, from the ends /dictates/ of justice, is printed out /written in the plainest characters/ by the hand of nature, will of itself, to such a degree as is palpable, be but too conclusive evidence of the establishment /setting up/ of a sinister end in which the prospect /pursuit/ of the general plan of these deviations had its use. This sinister end is profit /will be found to be throughout the same/, in all its various shapes, money, consideration, power, but above all money to the contrivers and constructors of the system, in all their various capacities.
  • Title: [11 Jan y 1807 Outline Conclusion]
    Description: 11 Jan y 1807

    Outline

    Conclusion

    Of the technical systems a common property is to be extensive and abundant in complication and diversification of regulations and arrangements, narrow and scanty in relief in the provision made for the fulfilment of the engagements taken by the substantive branch of the law, for the attainment of the ends of justice.

    Of all technical systems in existence, it may be expected with confidence, that the English is at the same time most complicated and diversified in regulation and arrangement, and at the same time most scanty and inadequate in respect to relief: unitary, to a degree beyond example of disastrous perfection the two opposite defects /vices/.

    It is mentioned by Blackstone as the peculiar excitation of the law of England, that under it there is no right without a remedy. How stands the fact? That under the Common Law, and except in so far as from time to time /by approaching creeping on through a course of ages/ the Equity Courts have extended their dilatory, vexatious and expensive remedies, the English system is beyond all others abundant in rights destitute of remedy.

    In the Outline here submitted, if it fulfils /as far as it agrees/ /comes up to/ the endeavours and agrees with the conception formed of it by its author, compared with the existing technical system, the relief will be found as remarkable /distinguished/ for its extent, as the regulations and arrangements for simplicity for brevity of expression and simplicity of nature.