30 Jan y 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Engl. Proleg

''.1

If the use made in England of the English System of procedure in respect to evidence had had English wisdom for its origin, that same wisdom would have bestowed on it an universally extending application without any other exceptions than what were suggested by so many specific and appropriate reasons: in a word this superior wisdom, the existence of which is thus assured[?] their [...?] if in the way of supposition would have operated with the same[?] regularity and comprehension /regular and comprehensive efficacy/ as the really existing inferior wisdom from which the Roman System took its birth. But the multiplied, the diversified, and in every instance groundless deviations /aberrations/ made from this ever conspicuous and ever acknowledged model /pattern/ of perfection, demonstrate but too plainly that if to any thing that can be seen be called wisdom /in any sense the national wisdom, it is not in any sense /degree// it is not to professional wisdom that it owes its birth, and that whatever reflection and industry has been bestowed upon it by men of law, has been occupied /employed/, almost without exception not in the preservation and improving /preserving and improving/ it, but in defaming it in injuring it, and rendering it in every instance less conducive /adapted/ to its professed and only proper end.