22 July 1810 6

Fallacies Ch | | Cause and Obstacle

4

| | Universities 1 [...?]

| | 1. Per[...?] Universities

Note (a)?

The sanction /ceremony/ /let/ it may be said is an abuse, it involves in it in the supposition of its efficacy /efficiency/ is involved necessarily involved a supposition absurd and impious.: viz that man - any man by whom an oath is administered has God at his command, as /a Judge has a Sheriff and/ Sheriff has at his command a Sheriff and a Sheriff an execution, the man dooming the fellow creature to /infinite and/ clerant[?] or infinite or nobody knows or cares what losses and st[...?]ter torment and the almighty executing the sentence of course. If man has not this power over the Almighty, the oath is a vain ceremony, and in[?] regard to the punishment of which it is supposed to be productive the violation of it an act without effects

Let this be so /allowed/: For argument sake let this be so: but if so it be, the consequence is - not that the act of administering exercise of authority, but that it is an act of tyranny no less absurd and thus[?] impious.

The ceremony /engagement/ can not be at the same time awful, and frivolous: the engagement obligatory and unobligatory: the violation /profanation[?]/ of it flagitious and inurent[?]: awful /sacred/ for the purpose of justifying those by whom it is thus habitually administered, frivolous for the purpose of justifying them in administering it under a certainty of its being violated, and in and by its violation /being violated/ becoming a cause of perjury.