8 Dec r 1803

Exclusion

2 Notoriety

By the non-notoriety of any article of law, be it what it may, the efficacy is proportionally destroyed. By the notoriety of any such pernicious whole of adjective law as is just described, the pernicious efficacy of this primary article of law should therefore be proportionally destroyed, and upon the aggregate of that branch of the law - the substantive branch in which the intrinsic importance of the whole body of law taken together creates and is conferred, the influence of this non-notoriety /event of notoriety/ should therefore be beneficial.

But the beneficial influence of non-notoriety as applied to the body of the laws depends, as hath already been observed upon this: /contingency/ /condition/ viz:L that this one part of the body of the laws shall remain unknown, or less known which other parts are absolutely or comparatively known - diffused through the body of the people, on whose obedience /observance/ the efficacy of every law depends. But this is a condition which in the present instance, in the instance of the rules of exclusion above described, will be found to be in a very considerable degree verified /fulfilled/. Between the adjective /substantive/ branch of the law and the substantive /adjective/ there is in this respect a very marked line of distinction. Of the substantive branch some degree of knowledge is found /obtained/ generally by the body of the people, by each man more or less in respect of those particular parts in which he is particularly concerned /has lot and condition more particularly depends/. As no man can either offer obedience to the laws, or choose the benefit of them any further than as they are known to him, so far as this branch of the law is concerned, universal ruin /destruction/ would be the consequence of universal ignorance.