17 April 1805

Evidence

Procedure Technical

Conclusion

Of the burthen with which in the shape of delay, the collateral inconvenience vexation and expense the technical system is every where loaded, the enormity is too palpable to be disputed or disembled: disembled, even by those who by every bond of interest and prejudice are urged down to the defence of it. The current plea is that all this collateral inconvenience is necessary, or at least conducive to the attainment of the main object, the avoidance of misdecision: that the submission to the collateral burthen of the lesser inconvenience is the price necessarily paid, and amply compensated by the exemption by which mankind are liberated from the direct and more intolerable mischief /grievance/: and if not directly asserted, an opinion /a position/ is at any rate intimated, and must for the purpose of the defence /argument/ be introduced /accorded/ , that the quantum of advantage thus obtained rises /encreases/ in proportion to the quantum of the price thus paid

In the course of the present book it will be seen whether the sum of advantage thus supposed to be purchased, and purchased at so high a price, is positive, or equal to, or negative. In the /the future/ /work on/ the rationale of procedure some conception will be endeavoured to be conveyed of the amount of that source /burthen/ of inconvenience by which the mass of inconvenience attached in the shape of delay, vexation and expense to the technical system of procedure exceeds the mass of like nature attached to the natural system of procedure. It will then, nor can it till then, be seen, in any sufficient detail, how enormous the price in which in that shape - men have /are/ everywhere been forced to pay and for nothing, but for much worse. /not for superior but for inferior justice./