10 July 1804

Procedure & Evidence

Evils causes

ch Intricacy

In proportion, generally speaking, to the intricacy of the cause /suit/, as constituted by these several causes of complication, one or more of these, will be the danger of wrongful decision to the prejudice of the one side or the other, and the probable degree of delay, and thence of vexation and expense.

The conclusion however would be as /alike/ erroneous as /---/ it would be deplorable /disheartening/, if from a view of all those possible and non continually operating causes of complication, compared with the small number of sorts of cases exhibiting the maximum of simplicity any such inference were to be drawn as that the number of complex cases individually taken, were in anything like that proportion to the number of most simple cases, individually taken. So far from this supposed state of things is the truth, that if /were/ /upon/ a correct account of such actually constituted it would appear - that the aggregate number of complex causes, in a year of all degrees of complexity taken together bears but a small ratio to the number of most simple causes instituted in the same term.