Evidence

6 June 1805

Introd Instance[?]

Ch. [...? ...?]

fiction, an account has already been /will soon be/ given under the head of of those mischievous of all falsehoods which have had lawyers for their inventors /been invented by Lawyers/. The sort of fiction here in question may be placed at the head of them; universal in its extent, it is universal in its application. In medicine /medical science/, the universal medicine is unhappily a fiction /a [...?]/; in moral, the existence of a universal poison is but too true; in this fiction it is realized.

Jurisprudential Law is that /the most frequently cited/ species of sham law which Judges to palliate the inequity of their conduct, Judges refer to an existing, and constituting a legal ground for their decisions when they punish or burthen a man without law /without warrant from any really existing law.

In the infancy of political society; there was an unhappy necessity of acting under this imaginary sort of law in judicial practice; imbecillity the necessary accompaniment of an experience, disqualified men /the human mind/ for the formation of general rules. But in adult and civilised society this necessity has long since been at an end: the necessity, and with it the excuse, on the part of the legislator, when there exist any such office.

[...?] lot of [the supposed golden age immature society!] It could have a system of procedure /judicature/ that was not rotten at the core! It could not so much as have a body of law - a body of really existing laws to govern itself by!

Even to the last, on the part of those, who in the character of Judges continue to act under this sham law, all guilt, in respect of their acting under it - all guilt, as well moral as legal, is out of the question; but, whatsoever becomes of the guilt, the mischief, the essential and inseparable mischief - incognisibility, certainty, intricacy, is still the same.