JB_113_035v.xml

Title: [[113-035v] 1821. June 20. Codification]

Description: [113-035v]

1821. June 20.

Codification Offer

'.7/8/ Foreigner why

'. Advantages of foreignership summed up

of these prejudices will those persons, from whom alone the Code of his framing can derive its binding force, have any share.

The national prejudices - the erroneous preconceived opinions - derived from nationality, whatever they may be, which may have exercised an influence, more or less prejudicial, on his work, will find, ready prepared for them, a check, composed of the prepossessions, reasonable and erroneous together, of those on whom the work will have to depend for the acceptance given to it: at their hands it will not fail to receive any alterations which, in the name of amendments, they may be pleased to make in it.

In the case where the draughtsman is a native, this check, useful as it can not be denied to be, has no place.

Upon the whole, the advantages promised by the choice of a foreigner on this occasion in preference to a native, may be thus summed up -

1. In its ultimate state, the Code will be less exposed to be vitiated by particular and thence sinister interests.

2. It will be less exposed to be vitiated by prejudices, appertaining to the country in relation to which it obtained the force of law: he being, by the supposition, no partaker in them.

3. The draughtsman being, with reference to that same country, a foreigner, whatsoever prejudices imbibed by him in his own country it may happen to him to be a partaker in, will not be likely to be adopted, and thus made to vitiate the Code: and thus it is that it will have the fairest chance possible of remaining as clear as possible of all pernicious prejudices.

4. So far as regards positive intellectual aptitude and active talent, a comparatively unapt hand will be less likely to have been employed than if it had been the hand of a native: the foreigner having neither recommendation nor support other than the reputation of appropriate aptitude.

5. After its supposed completion, as far as capable of being compleated by the foreign hand, it will be more jealously watched and searchingly scrutinized into than it would have been had it been the work of a native hand: and thus, whatsoever imperfections may have place in it, will be more likely to receive correction in such other hands as it will have to pass through.

JB_024_451v.xml

Title: [1821 Nov. 11 Codification Offer '.8. Foreigner]

Description: 1821 Nov. 11 Codification Offer '.8. Foreigner best '.2. II. Intellectual

aptitude I. Judgment

II. Next as to appropriate intellectual aptitude. On the present occasion this

element of appropriate aptitude will require to be further decomposed:

decomposed into appropriate judgment and appropriate knowledge.

1. In regard to appropriate judgment, on the occasion of the question as between

a single hand and divers hands, mention came to be made of the erroneous tracks

into which the pen of every such Draughtsman stands exposed to be led by

prejudice in different shapes: thence probability of correspondent aberration on

the part of the work from the all-comprehensive end so often mentioned. These

prejudices will to a large extent be of a local nature: peculiar in degree of

strength at least if not in kind to the country in question. From the influence

of these causes of error, while the native labours under it, the foreigner

stands free.

The foreigner will have his prejudices to contend against, and in particular his

local prejudices. But here, as in the case of interests and affections, while

those of the natives will find support in the prejudices of all around him, for

those of the foreigner not only will there be no such support but there will be

opposition, by the supposition from reasons, and moreover from counter

prejudices.

JB_012_073v.xml

Title: [1821. April 2 Codification Offer]

Description: 1821. April 2

Codification Offer

'7 Foreigner why

As by sinister interest moral aptitude may be affected and deteriorated, so, by prejudices, interest-begotten or otherwise derived, may intellectual aptitude. In any prejudices peculiar to the country in question, the foreigner, by the supposition, has no share. From prejudices imbibed in his own foreign country, no danger to the one in question can arise. In none of these prejudices will those persons, from whom alone the Code of his framing can derive its binding force, have any share.

The national prejudices - the erroneous preconceived opinions derived from nationality,- whatever they may be, which may have exercised an influence more or less prejudicial on his work, will find ready prepared for them, a check, composed of the prepossessions, reasonable and erroneous together, of those on whom the work will have to depend for the acceptance given to it; at their hands it will not fail to receive any alterations which in the name of amendments they may be pleased to make in it.

In the case where the draughtsman is a native, this check, useful as it can not be denied to be, has no place.

(a) When Mill's History of British India first came out, it being advertised that

the author had never set foot on any part of the country of which he gave the

history - "What instruction can be got from this book by any of us who have

[...?] or lived there was a question generally [...?] It had long made its

appearance, before the acknowledgments became generally that no man who had ever

been there possessed so clear, correct, or extensive a conception of the state

and history of that country as the historian who had never set foot on any part

of it.