21 August 1804

Procedure

Ch. Non-homologation

By this distinction as may be enabled to view with the less surprise a phenomenon which otherwise might have presented itself as being inconceivable. In this comment /a passage/ on Judge Littleton's treatise on [...?], on property in land, Maltese Chief Justice Coke undertakes to give an examination of all the several sources of argument which Littleton had ever drawn upon in the course of that book. The members of this is 20 and of those 20 three and three alone present the appearance of being any the slightest reformer to the dictates of original and appropriate utility. Under the several heads /each heading of argument/ reformers are given to the purpose in which the correspondent species of argument is employed. Under the head of argumentation ab in convannte[?] ten examples are referred to: under head of argumentation ab utile vil [...?] only: under the head of argumentation a fine, two /four/. (''. 48. 194. 273. 578.) Label 15.

In many not to say most in all of these instances the purpose referred to is so much nonsense, not presenting any the slightest glance of any thing like pleasure or pain advantage or inconvenience. But supposing them all so many exemplifications of deference pined[?] to the [...?] dictates of utility, what would these passages amount to in comparison of the hundreds of passages in which not the remotest reference /view/ to utility - to the happiness /welfare/ of the community - is so much as supposed /suspected/ to have been made: suppose even by the avowed panigyrest or rather [...?] of the mass of law in question, and of the sage who is made [...?] if as the chief among the [...?] of his time.?