23 April 1808

Reasons for the Work

A. Note the distinction between the import of the term ground of demand, when employed to denote the text of law in the abstract without designation of the particular contents, and the import of the same term, where employed to denote some particular ground of demand, viz. the collative event &c, consti[?] - established in that character by that same portion of law.

Where the terms, collative or ablative event &c., are employed, observe always what the right is with reference to which the event is collative or ablative: whether a right exercisible at large, i.e. without application to the Judge, or a right merely to a particular judicial service to be rendered by the Judge. Upon this distinction turns the difference between the case where a man has a right to an individual thing, such as a house[?], a house &c, without need of making application to the Judge, and the case where the right he has is nothing more than a right to demand, at the hands of the Judge, a certain service: for example, the conferring on him a right of the above description: say, in the first case, an absolute or exercisible right; in the other case, a judiciary right.

The right a man has to a sum of money owing to him is never in any other state than that of a judiciary right as above described.