date

13 April 1805 Evidence Securities
13 April 1805

Evidence

Securities

ch Procedure Testimony

3' Sinister interest --------- ------

From exposure to the action of these sinister interests, from the natural and actual and unavoidable pursuit of these sinister objects, it follows, and beyond dispute, that, in situation, in operation, and in practice the class of men of law is composed of the natural enemies of mankind.

Start not gentle reader: in this proposition, novel as it may seem, there is neither paradox, nor injustice: nor yet, in any degree approaching to what at first sight may be apparent, any peculiar reproach.

All men, though in some points of view reciprocally natural friends and coadjutors are in some points of view, reciprocally natural rivals: all natural rivals are to a certain degree natural enemies /adversaries/. If the potter, according to an observation old as -----, is envious of the potter, the musician of the musician, it is because potter being a natural rival of potter, musician of musician, is to a certain degree his enemy.

But there is a circumstance which distinguishes the emnity of the man of law towards all the other dupes taken together from the emnity of any one class or of any individual, or towards any of the rest. Potter is not in the power of potter, musician of musician, potter of musician, nor musician of potter: all, all alike, are under the power, and at the mercy of the man of law. The potter has never been able to force the man of law to buy his pots: the musician his music: potter and musician have from the very first and still continue to be forced by the man of law to buy law from him: to buy it, and at the price which he himself had been pleased to put upon it. Of potter and musician the mutual emnity has /has all along/ been restrained by a /kept under by a/ common yoke: of the lawyer toward the potter and musician, the emnity, under the ---- of power, has ---- into an unfeeling and unrelenting tyranny.
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