[114-020v]

1821. April 14

Codification Offer

'7 Foreigner why

The same in every country, for every race, and at every time will be found the enumeration of the misdeeds by which security is liable to be affected, the classes & genera, of the names of which the list of those misdeeds will require to be composed, and the definitions by which the points of agreement and difference as between one genus an another, as well as between each of them and innocence, will require to be determined and expressed. In this or that country, in the case of this or that race, at this or that point of time. At the present time for example circumstances may afford room for producing injury, in this or that particular shape, in which, in this or that other country, in the case of this or that other race, man is not exposed to it. True. But the species to which the injury when in this particular shape may be said to belong, is a species which upon observation will be found comprehended in a genus of injury to which in every country, men of every race stand exposed.

Thus a corporal injury will be an injury every where and to every human being. But in Hindoostan, for example, to the prejudice of a certain race, corporal injury is produced, by a species of contact, by which no injury would be produced in any part of Europe.

So again in regard to simple mental injuries: those undenominated injuries, which have their seat no where but in the mind. By a portion of audible discourse, or by a visible exhibition, by which contempt were expressed for opinions to this or that effect, entertained in relation to religion, pain of mind is liable to be produced. According to the amount of it, an act productive of pain from this source, as well as from every other, may, under certain circumstances, be with propriety regarded and dealt with as injurious every where: but, in some countries and in the case of some religious persuasions, the description of the thus injurious discourse, or exhibition, would be of one sort: in others, of another.