049-177.xml

Title: [31 July 1805 Evidence Introd]

Description: 31 July 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprud.

Ch. III Lawyers Art

''. Popular affection

no argument

3. Under the influence of the causes of delusion to the action of which on this ground the body of the people have every been exposed, it would be strange indeed if any degree of depravity on the part of the system could have prevented or destroyed /dissolved/ their attachment to it. Of their own /On any judgment/ views /of his own/ framing it is generally impossible for a non-lawyer to form any tolerable adequate and distinct conception at all of the merit of the jurisprudential part of the law: it is a terror incognita his conception of which can not be collected from any other source than the accounts of Voyagers. But without any exception whatsoever the accounts of Voyagers are all false, dressed up in eulogistic and flattering colours, by a set of men practised in falshood possessing falshood engaged /urged/ by the force of the most irresistable interests to practice /pact in practice/ /work with all their might/ the arts of deception for this purpose, and purchasing them accordingly /exhausting upon this object their whole budget/ without measure or remorse.

Suppose an island any where about the antipodes an Island which for several centuries past had been continually visited, and traversed in the all directions by travellers in scores or hundreds at a time, all agreeing in representating it as a sort of Utopia, an earthly paradise /a paradise upon earth/? Be the real state of this Island /Utopia/ ever so opposite to this the picture thus given of it, by what means shall those who sit /remain/ at home rendering of all these marvels in their elbow chairs, be able to detect the falsity of it? Sooner or late, here and there a critick might arise, who, by means of those incredibilities and inconsistencies which oversight and negligence will be sure to scatter here and there over every extensive plan of falshood /scheme of imposture/ will have pointed it out /out the fallacy/ and proved it to the satisfaction of all who have leisure or will or curiosity to attend to it and strength of mind to go through with it. But even them, who shall say what length of time shall have been sufficient to cure the body of the people of a delusion so universally imbibed?

059-191.xml

Title: [14 August 1804 Procedure False]

Description: 14 August 1804

Procedure

False Ends

(4 '2 ------ --------

It is an Utopia, the branches(?) of which are sure to receive the fullest confirmation from the concurrent testimony of all travellers. Should any false brother /any renegade/ prompted by whatever rare and extraordinary motive, take upon him to betray the cause of the profession, and substitute in every part of the picture the true colours to the false - an event /a -----/ scarcely ever exemplified and always too rare to be expected /by ---- too rare and unnatural/ - the effect will be next to nothing /he will find his labour bestowed to better purpose //lost// /. With one voice he will himself stand accused of misrepresentation, and his assumed mis-statements if not the result of ----- will be imputed to his ignorance. But to what purpose, or with what hope, should any man be guilty /plunge into the guilt/ of his brother's honesty. The state of the law can no otherwise be defended than in the language of the law, and the language of the law is that sort of composition which /that/ no men but those who are paid for it, or expect to be paid for it, could ever yet prevail upon himself to swallow. Saxon, Moeso(?)-Gothic, Arabic, Chinese, heraldry, Algebra men have learnt for amusement. Law language, I mean the language of English law - and those parts of it with which the depths /recesses/ of the labyrinth are stored nothing but the hope, the ---- passport added to the ------ of rich emolument, could even yet interest a man to make his own. A slight sketch, yes: such as is to be found in Blackstone: but the picture /in the sketches/ given by Blackstone, a man will find a picture as faithful of the but too real and too numerous deficiencies /infirmities/ /bad ------/ of the existing system, as the pictures that are to be read of the new Jerusalem are of any real Jerusalem old or new. Under the name of pays de Cocagne proverbial language in France speaks of a country in which partridges as numerous as flies /--------/ fly abroad ready roasted, crying come eat me. The falsity of such a representation if given as a true account of ornithology in France or England would /could/ not be more universally notorious, than the falsity of many of those pictures of the state of the law in its most -------- features which may be seen displayed in English books. + For the disbelief of what is continually ----- before their own eyes is one of those manifestations of ----- confidence in which Englishmen are continually exercised by English lawyers.

+ Reference to `Truth versus Ashhurst'.

JB_082_324.xml

Title: [12 May 1808 I. Reasons Ch.V]

Description: 12 May 1808

I. Reasons

Ch.V. Advantages

§.9. Malâ Fide demands ousted.

Ch.V.

§.9. Malâ fide demands excluded in great measure.

Such is among the effects the production of which in Ch.V. §.3. {Certainty} is stated as proper to be aimed at: aimed at, and by the means therein brought to view. viz. by the interest which under the proposed arrangements the plaintiff would have in rendering his statements as explicit and to the defendant as instructive as the nature of the case on each individual occasion happens to allow: by the proposed and not uncustomary oath or solemn declaration not of sincerity a general terms, for that would be but grimace and perjury, but of his belief as attached to the several particulars therein stated by him, and the inconvenience which would fall upon him of course, if for want of sufficient correctness - particularly on his side, the Defendant should at the hearing be obliged to apply for, and should accordingly obtain, an adjournment.

In England, if in that kingdom lay the scene, the title of this result to the character of an advantageous one would be in no small degree precarious.

In England the emoluments of many a man in high authority, and amongst others of the several dignitaries of the law, depend in no small degree upon the number of suits and consequently of demands. But a malâ fide demand is a demand: consequently by every malâ fide demand struck off, were such a thing endurable, a proportionable part of the reward allotted to exalted merit, in this and that exalted station, would be struck off. Without adequate compensation such a defalcation would scarcely not be endurable, in the eye either of prudence or of justice, with such compensation it would not be endurable in the eye of a man of finance, regarding as usual no injury to justice as a price too great to pay for personal case[?].