14 July 1805

Evidence

Introd Jurisprudent

Ch. Note a [...?]

1 Vices

In this verbosity the man of law sees the best sound and most impregnable defence against any attempt that could be /[...?] that could be used/ /anything that could be/ made towards diminishing in favour of the subject the impossibility /non-lawyer the impracticability/ of becoming /making himself/ acquainted with the law /standard of obedience/.

Every additional volume, every page, every line, adds strength to the entrenchment by which the sanctuary is /secrets of the sanctuary are/ defended against unlearned eyes.

The time is passed, since threats were thought necessary, to prevent the secrets of the law /prescriptions of law/, from being betrayed to those, who were to be punished for not knowing them. The mass is now sufficiently defended by its own opacity /bulk/: an insurmountable physical bar [is now substituted to] /already has taken the place of/ a fragile legal one.

The fortress of discussion is now sealed upon a rock and to the delight and triumph of the inhabitants every day adds /gives/ fresh strength to the security that has been acquired: while the disease is growing every day more and more violent, the remedy is growing every day more and more unattainable. Each day adding violence to the disease, each day adding hopelessness to the remedy.

What more can be so much as wished for /desired/, by the most altruistic lover /admirer/ of the profession, by the bitterest enemy of mankind?

Exactly in this state [of things] must the condition of mankind /Englishmen/ remain, so long as the rule of action /by the [...?] of the legislator/ is suffered to remain in the state of jurisprudential, by the most barbarous abuses of words that was ever made, called /misnamed/ common law.

Note

The superiority of physical bars to legal ones is no secret to the venerable bench /[.../] of sages./ It is thus that necessary punishment is compressed into [...?] and the limitations applied with so much anxiety by the legislator are set at angles[?] by a conspiracy between the administrator and the Judge. It is [...?] that publicly is [...?] and the [...?] [...?] of a Court which scarce affords [...?] for those whose business is dispensing [...? ...?] for the admission of unlimited multitudes.