Procedure + Evidence

5 July 1804

Evil Causes[?]

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

(2 ''.2.1. Word indeterminate

That it may be seen in what manner that property of indeterminateness in the expression, (and then uncertainty in the import) /is inherent in the matter of/ instances to jurisprudential law, it will be necessary to look into the sources or rather the source from which it flows, and see /observe/ in what shape and in what manner it flows from these or that source.

The materials /matter/ out of which jurisprudential law (in English Common Law in one of the senses of the word Common,) is made may be referred to one or other of the following heads.

1. Decisions judicial: - decisions pronounced by Judges in contested cases on the occasion of individual causes; supposed substance of each decision being preserved either in tenor or in purport by historical statements preserved by professional lawyers, and published (or unpublished). Such statements are in English jurisprudence termed Reports, Reports of adjudged cases.

2. Practice of Courts; viz; in cases not contested.

3. Treatises; Books written by professional lawyers, invested or not invested but mostly not invested, with judicial offices, and having for their subject such decisions and such practice.