1821 Oct. 29

To Toreno

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Letter VII. Religion

Blasphemy

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5

Not content with making a man punishable for blashemy uttered in a public place, (whatever it may be that may come to be […?] onto[?] blasphemy) Gentlemen take in hand the case of its being uttered in private, and be it ever so compleatly private pursue it with their punishment. Not quite so /soever/ great needed is the punishment in the case of privacy as in the case of publicity. In both cases it is either revulsion[?] or imprisonment: his words to which in their vocabulary different imports are attached. See But in the case of publicity it is from 15 days to 3 months: whereas in case of privacy it is no more than from 8 to 40 days.

Blasphemy, public, private—finding them in the most comon use, Gentlemen take up these words, and with the most perfect confusion employ them in the distribution of these lost of punishment, just as if of ideas ever so determinate[?] were respectively attached to them. Nothing as in a minute reflection may we may see can be further from the truth. As to blasphemy If ever there was a word which antecedently /preparatorily/ to the attaching of punishment to the commission of it required to be defined /fixt by a definition/: and in the proposed Code in question no attempt towards the construction of any such instrument of elucidation /security/ can I find.

Of publicity and privacy, the measure and only measure is—the number of the persons in whose presence the act is done or the state of things has place. But, familiar as is the word the idea meant to be attached to it requires to be fixt. But this can no otherwise be done but by reference made to the five senses, and according to the purpose in view, in one and the same state of things a man may be present to one purpose not present to another.