3 July 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprudential

Ch. Sources

2 ''. 3. a. Decision

This distillation or this architecture, howsoever necessary a process /an operation/ is not among the /those/ operations which every individual is compleatly competent to, the very first time he sets his hand to it. The ideas presented by the several decisions are but particular, individual ones: from each such set of particular ideas, before it can be made to serve as a rule of conduct for any other individuals on any other occasion, an indispensable condition is, that from these materials a corresponding set of general ideas must on every occasion be produced, each such set of general ideas not only capable of containing but actually containing two sets of particular ideas: one of these the set of ideas presented by the case /request/ actually decided on: the other, the set of ideas containing the new case which the individual in question has in contemplation, and in respect of which his conduct remains to be determined by the general set of ideas he has formed as where out of the old case.