1822 Nov. 5 Tripoli. Securities against Misrule 3o Preliminary Explanations 2.

Sanctionment

In the countries in question if I understand the matter right, none of these

memorials have been collected, which in England over so large a portion of the

field of thought and action occupy /stand/ the place of law. I mean that sort of

matter which consists /is composed/ of statements of cases by which judicial

decision has been called for - the particular decision pronounced in each case,

and the general positions which have been brought forward by the Judge in

support and justification of his particular decision, such general positions

which /as/ in the way of inference have been deduced from it by writers /mere

volunteer dissertators/ not invested with any such authority as that of a Judge.

Case 2. The standard of reference referred to in Judicial decisions, composed -

not of inferences /drawn not/ from former decisions, but from an original

standard, composed in a time of remote antiquity /of antient date/.

In the country in question not of any such matter the standard of reference is

it seems of this second sort composed: not of any such matter but of the

following. There stands the Coran, the work of Mahomet the universally

acknowledged standard of opinion and practice in all matters of religion as well

as law. But for a great portion of those particular cases which the occurrences

of life are continually giving birth in this book the matter being for the most

part of a nature extremely general is not susceptible of an application

particular enough to serve as an adequately determinate guide. Influenced by

this observation, different persons without concert with each other have at

various times set themselves to work to fill up the vacuities, all of them

agreing in the homage paid to the general positions discoverable in the sacred

text, but differing from one another in no inconsiderable degree in respect of

the inferences drawn from them - the particular practice of which as being

contained under them /included within them/ application has been made. With

reference to the sacred text, these works of inferior authority stand in the

relation of Commentaries.