9 July 1804

Procedure & Evidence

Note Evils causes

Ch. 5th Order

' 1. Intricacy

2. Intricacy. Complexity - complication - intricacy

I. Natural causes

The connection between complication and intricacy - complication, whether the substantive branch of the law or the adjective be the branch in which the evil is considered as manifesting it self, is extremely intimate. The two ideas do not however exactly coincide nor therefore are the terms in every case incontrovertible. Intricacy is we see the effect; complication a cause of that effect. But though the principal it is not the only cause. Complication so much of it as is the result of natural causes, is a cause, and as it should seem the only natural cause of intricacy. But intricacy, besides the factitious causes of complication has various other factitious causes. (a) Note. On this, as on so many other subjects, there is no operating without a metaphor. The system of course of procedure is considered as a road - Of this road the fulfilment of the predictions delivered in each case by the substantive branch of the law is the end or termination; intricacy is a quality /an undesirable quality or property/, of which this, like other roads, is susceptible. The more complex the case is, the longer the road may be said to be, and in that respect the more intricate: the longer the road the greater the distance between the point at which it commences, and the point at which it terminates: the greater consequently the number of steps that will require to be taken, as well as the number of minutes that will require to be occupied /expended/ /consumed/ in travelling over that length of space /distance/.