?? April 1805

Evidence

Intro

ch Lawyers' character

' Hypocrisy

By a sort of conspiracy between craft and imbecillity, the imputation of utopianism, and -----ness /----/, has been attached to /fastened upon/ the few --- of mankind, whose labours are applied to the description of things as they ought to be /to the definition of the picture of things as they ought to be: to the endevour to improve /mitigate/ the condition of human nature. But if utopianism be understood to mean, as the ----- of the work which gives birth to it seems to require, the description /delineation/ of desirable effects represented as flowing from inappropriate or inadequate causes, utopianism is a term that would /should/ in England more particularly if not exclusively, be applied /considered/ no ex---- of the spirit which in the geography of law characterizes the pretended describers of things as they are - the Cokes, the Gilberts, and the Blackstones.

In these the system of arrangements is portrayed as if not actually seated upon the pinnacle of perfection, at least fast approaching to the pinnacle /that station/ of perfection, wanting of any thing, nothing but a little ---- to put it in perfection of it /that/ part. How should it be otherwise? It is the work of men of law: of the sages of the law: the fruit of the ---- ----- lucubrations. To be governed, each man by his own interest, is the property of ordinary men - of every man who is not of the number of these sages. These men are not ordinary men: they are of quite another texture. They have no interest of their own: or if they had they would not regard it, they would not be governed by it. Their interest, the interest which on all occasions they are governed by, is /by, the only one they look to is/ no other than the interest of the community - the interests of justice. -- therefore who happens at any time to have the ----- to know what right is, has no more ---- than to show what they do: whatever they do is right: if for no other reason - and indeed there wants no other /and clearly there --- --- another/ - because they do it /it is they that do it.

"The law is the perfection of reason: whatever is not reason is not law". Blackstone

A record is a true /the proper/ diagram for the demonstration of right. Gilbert