17 July 1804

Procedure & Evidence

Evils causes

ch 5th Order

' 1. Intricacy

6. Form of expression for general regulations jurisprudential, instead of statutory: - a system /heap/ of conjectures and /inferences and/ imaginations in each case concerning the import of this or that imaginary general rule of action, never delivered in that character by any competent legislative authority, nor to be found in any authoritative instrument ---ned to any assignable or /and/ determinate form /assemblage/ of words: hence, an immeasurable mass of words, consisting of argumentation heaped upon argumentation, without end.

7. Jurisdictions entangled: a multiplicity of tribunals: each pursuing a different mode of procedure in relation to the same demand: the boundaries between the authority of one and the authority of another being on this account liable to be indeterminate, as being described by metaphysical /logical/ and purely ideal laws, instead of material and topographical ones.

8. Arrangements necessitating differences in the mode of procedure in different courts, though the demand respectively pursued in them is the same.

Note (a)

(a) This sixth cause may be considered as being in /of/ itself in a great measure the cause of the 5 preceding ones: - viz. language rendered unintelligible, ambiguous or obscure in a variety of ways: by being distorted, factitious, obsolete and /or/ uncharacteristic.