Procedure

17 Aug 1804

Non-homologation

Bad from the first, or bad only by the lapse of time, it is that we have two masses of bad jurisprudential law, to which without introducing the mischief of disconformity, that is of general instability and uncertainty, it is not in the power of jurisprudential law, of the makers o jurisprudential law as such - the Judges /I mean the Judge/ - ever to apply a remedy, a remedy except one which is, and which is very generally understood to be - in almost all cases /in all ordinary cases/ worse than the disease.

/As it has been said to be of peat-moss, so it is at any rate the nature /It is the nature/ of jurisprudential law; to go on /it goes on/ growing without end. But as to that part which is bad in itself the longer it keeps on growing, the further /wider/ of course it diverges from that which is /whatever is/ good in itself - from the sound and useful branches /from the Courts o Utility, and [...?]. But all these ramifications good and bad together, are inexplicably and almost indistinguishably intermingled: insomuch that the whole /aggregate/ mass presents a body tainted with disease, covered with cankered spots, rotten in many places to the very core, and radically destitute of that intrinsic /salutary/ power, which, in the human body under the mysterious name of viz medicatrix nature, physicians are so found to celebrate /fond of [...?]/ are so happy to recognise.

In statutory law, antinomia produces no uncertainty: in jurisprudential law, antinomia produces uncertainty, and that incurable.