3 March 1808

35

Letter V

§.4. Reasons

Jurisprudence

On this occasion there is some difficulty, it must be confessed, in drawing the line between the matter of the law itself and the matter of the reasons - and saying - these words are the words of the law, these others the words of the reason or set of reasons, by which the enactment of it is justified. It being among the properties of this branch of the rule of action not to have any determinate assemblage of words belonging to it, this difficulty, it must further be confessed, is an insuperable one. But, (subject always to the little embarrassment which results from the necessity of representing continually as existing an object which in truth never has any existence,) it is not the less true that there is the law and there are the reasons for it, the only difficulty being to get the one separate from the other: in a well-filled basket measure the contents of which are composed of two or three grains of wheat, the rest being chaff, there may be a difficulty in getting the wheat apart from the chaff, but it is not the less there.

A circumstance which in the character of a precedent, renders the practice in this behalf so much the more recommendatory and persuasive, is - that of the compound composed of a something called law and a something else called reasons, the part consisting of the reasons is the only part which can strictly speaking be said, or will even by a cautious lawyer be acknowledged to be endowed with any such attribute as that of existence, or at any rate to have on the occasion in question received that attribute.