[059-211]

18 May 1805

Evidence

Introd.

In so far as any encrease in the number of suits receives its existence from this cause, the question on which it /the suit turns, --- ----- --/ is the object of the suit to obtain as decision, is the question of law .

The tenor of the substantive law being supposed clear - not ambiguous - the raising the number of well grounded suits to its maximum is thus --ing the legitimate ends of procedure - Why? because it is only in proportion as it /this number/ approaches to this /its/ maximum that the direct ends of procedure are necessarily fulfilled: it is only in so far as a just cause of suit , is followed either by the rendering of the service in question without suit, where that can be done with propriety which it cannot be in a formal case, or by actual suit /by actual pursuit of the demand/, followed by a decision grounded on the demand; and rendering the service which is the object of it. a So often as the cause of suit remaining in existence, actual suit fails of being instituted, injustice is the result /consequence/ the dead end if procedure in one or other of its branches, remains disfulfilled.

By any encrease in the number of ill-grounded suits, suits instituted without a just cause, whether with or without a -------- of this groundlessness, no such advantage is obtained: - why? because in any such suit, if the service demanded be rendered, that service being by the supposition not due, injustice /is done/ to the ------ of the defendant is done, the ultimate collateral end of procedure, in one or other of its three branches is contravened.

a In the penal branch, an exception to this rule is ----- by the case of a multitude of delinquents too great for punishment. Cases exist in no small number ----- (the case of a civil war with alternate triumphs, for example) in which the whole population of a country may be /find itself/ involved in the predicament of delinquency. In a case of this sort, it is evident that as it can not be desirable that every delinquent should be punished, so neither is it that every delinquent should be prosecuted.