June 1805
Evidence
Introd
Ch. False Ends
' General
As the conclusion, after hearsay
Of the false or sinister ends by the pursuit of which the persons occupied in the construction of existing systems of procedure could not but have been governed enough has now been said. It may be of use to convey some general conception of the principal means: the modus operandi: I mean not the arrangements themselves of details of which the fabric is composed of these in passing ample exemplification, and that a pretty ample one, has already been given in the Table. I speak rather of the principal instruments: the psychological tools or by the help of which the fabric of injustice /work of darkness/ has been reared. Of the general rules principles or maxims or lines of policy pursued in the execution of the work.
1. The first was to keep the body of the people in a state of ignorance, as profound as possible in regard to the contents of the law substantive as well as adjective, of the rule of action to which they on all occasions were called upon to conform, and from which they never could swerve without from it: to keep the terms of it as unintelligible, and even the existence of it as little known as possible.
2. Another was, in relation to such parts as they could not prevent men from being more or less acquainted with, discouraging them as much as possible from all inquiry into the reasons of it and exercising the right of private judgment in relation to it: representing it as either not standing in need of reason for its justification, or as being founded in reason that were too sublime and mysterious to be intelligible.
3. To lose no opportunity of inculcating in mens' minds a [...?] of admiration and veneration[?] for the law and its professions: an admiration as abject and blind and undiscriminating as possible.
4. To do everything in their power towards keeping in a state of imbecility the faculty of reason in mens' minds.
5. To use their endeavour in like manner to corrupt the morals of mankind by weakening mens' regard for truth and justice by encouraging in them a disposition to regard mendacity and iniquity with indifference, complacency, and even with respect, under the notion of their being instruments, necessary instruments of law.
5th[?] June 1805
Evidence
Introd
' General
In all these maxims and devise and maxims of lawyer-craft, there is nothing but what has been long ago observed in priest-craft: to whatever purpose applied the arts of imposture will ever be the same.
Note?
I speak of priest-craft in general, independently /without/ of any particular applications: the existence of priest-craft is recognised by some men even in priests of their own religion, and by every man in the priests of every religion that is not his own.
Imposture in lawyers has been no less busy nor less successful than in priests. Yet priest-craft has for ages been the object of invective: while lawyer-craft has been till now without a name?
When in any country, in any walk of science or pretended science, things are in such a state, that the function of public instruction is become an object of monopoly to single hand, the policy of that one individual is the policy of the whole class. A single book will in this case afford exemplification of it, sufficient for the purpose may be found in the compass of a single work. In England, in this state has this branch of public instruction been in the hands of Blackstone for almost half a century. In the hands of that one potter, the governing part of the public mind, has been os much clay for all that length of time.
His is the only lawbook read by liberally educated men of all classes. The labour of reading this one lawbook is the price at which men think[?] to be quit of the obligation of looking into any other. Other lawbooks in countless and numbers, are written by lawyers for the use of lawyers. None of them are looked into by any man who has not the misfortune to be obliged to study them who has not duress to plead for it.
3 June 1805
Evidence
Introd.
Ch. Means
' 2. Laws concealed
'' 2. Maxim 1. Keep the rule of action in the dark.
Keeping the rule of action in the dark was the capital article of [...?] urged by Protestants against Catholics. In the matter of religion, the reasons pleaded in justification, the force[?], were if not preponderant, at least by no means to be despised /not destitute of plausibility, or even stronger/.
[marginal note: not to speak of Egyptian, Hindus, Lam[?], and other mystical religions.] On the ground of law, these reasons are altogether without application. Yet on this ground the endeavour has been little less strenuous than on the other.
In the origin of political communities /states/, the combat of force and fraud fills up the little time which the care /case/ of defence against destruction from without /foreign hostility/, leaves to spare. As the one or the other happens to prevail, the constitution takes its line. The Force could it but be exerted with consent, physical force being the prerogative of the many, fraud is the recourse and instrument of the few.
In the early days of Roman jurisprudence, the monopoly of leisure and literature, such as leisure and literature was in these days, thence into the hands of the Patricians, in manner already mentioned, the monopoly of judicature. [marginal note: Supra Ch. False Heads] In those days whatever other vices might have been abundant, hypocrisy was scarcely among the number. (Virtue[?] had as yet scarce learnt to extend its signification beyond the [...?] of courage.) (Men spoke plainly at least, howsoever coarsely.) Patricinus. In this book, this second volume, are the rules by which we intend to conduct ourselves in disposing[?] of your lives and fortunes[?]. Platinus. Good: let us look at it there there. Patricinus. No: that you shan't. While the dispute was going on a plebian stole a copy of this precious book, published it, and got good payment for it. What was to be done? Learned gentlemen cried down this book, and made another, like an Admiral of modern times, who when the enemy have captured his book of signals, sits down with his secretary and contrives /makes/ a set of fresh ones.
3 June 1805
Evidence
Introd
Ch Means
' Laws concealed
Miserable Plebians! How should they have defended themselves against their lawyers? They durst not defend themselves so much as against a foreign enemy, unless the sacred chickens fed well, and the Patricians were the feeders.
3 June 1805
Evidence
Introd
Ch. Means
' 2. Laws concealed
In France, in feudal France, the rule of action was rendered intricate and dark enough by accidental causes: little industry was necessary to make it more so.
There was the whole body of the Roman law imported in the lump. Lay and Ecclesiastical, Imperial and Pontifical. There was the noble army of commentators each striving with his fellows who should make[?] obscurity more obscure, confusion worse confounded. There was the galaxy of customary[?], that is of provincial laws: a separate set for every province, the sovereignty of a guardian[?] petty sovereign swallowed up in the preponderant sovereignty of the descendants of [...?] Capet.
[blank]
June 1805
Evidence
Introd.
Ch. Means
' 5. Weaker reason
Section 5. 4. Weakening man's reasoning faculties
In law, as in religion and government, the importance of this object[?] of policy is too obvious to stand in need of explanation. Strong and weak are relative terms. The strength on the one part, is as the weakness on the other. The weakness of the lay-devotee is the strength of the priest. The weakness of Louis the XIIIth was the strength of Richelieu: the weakness of Louis the XIV was the strength of Mazarin. Of the Duc de Mont[?] the Governor of one of the [...?], it was fairly said by Fontanelli, [...?] [...?] not a day but what he strove more and more to render himself unnecessary. The praise seems to have been merited: but Mont[?] was not to be depository of his [...?] power, nor ever looked to be.
The congruity of this object in the character of a subordinate end being thus not of dispute, what remains for notice[?] are the means.
The three preceding maxims /laws of policy/ are all subservient to this one. In addition to their respective particular uses, this use is common to them all. Keep the rule of action in the dark, discourage criticisms, promote blind admiration, be the subject what it may, what recipes can contribute more powerful towards producing the requisite object, producing a general prostration of strength in the patient the destined victim - the public mind?
There remain two other medicaments of policy that have not yet been mentioned. 1. Inculcate in the mind of the pupil a blind reverence for antiquity in general: - for law, jurisprudential law not merely as the work of lawyers, but as the work of ancient lawyers. 2. Ply him with false wit: the particular species of false wit invented by lawyer craft for the lawyers. For though wit, true or false, is not argument, is not reason, either it may serve as a cloak to bad reason, or a substitute to good, and in either way /both may/ be conducive to the purpose.
June 1805
Evidence
Intro.
Ch. Means
' 6. [...?] Morals.
' 3. 6. 5. Fifth point of policy. Corrupting the public morals - Debasing the moral frame.
It is not every modification of a vice and criminality that the man of law has an interest in rendering: unless in the score above mentioned, viz: that of increasing the number of crimes and other offences liable to be punished, and thence to be prosecuted and defended.
The vices which in the pursuit of the sinister ends of the profession have received the most official and most constant encouragement from the men of law, viz: the vice opposite to veracity, and the vice opposite to the love of justice. Finding it necessary to his own purposes and for his own, to make a sort of diet[?] drink, of both these poisoned cups, it became equally necessary to him to endeavour to mitigate the abhorrence of those poisons in other minds. Intentionally or unintentionally /Intend it or not intend it/, such in some degree could not but be the effect of his own practice. Example is not only itself a precept, but in efficacy beyond all precepts. Neither the prostitute nor the procuress can to any purpose pretend to preach with severity against the breach of chastity.
Of the practices /lines/ by which this policy has been pursued, or at least this effect produced much remains not to be said here. Under the heads of Fiction, and decisions on grounds foreign to the merits, they have both been laid in their proper colours before the public eye.
June 1805
Evidence
Introd.
Ch. False Ends - Means
Where emolument is manufactured by such instruments and by such hands, reputation - (reputation of the appropriate kind, reputation of learning and wisdom) is necessary besides the value they possess on their own account, as well as power, to help form a cloak for it (for the more substantial advantage). And while business is made out of nothing, so science, deep and recondite science, adapted to that business, is to be manufactured out of nonsense.
To sinister interest thus operating, in conjunction with (negligence and) imbecility may be ascribed the obscurity and uncertainty that pervade the existing systems. Concealment of the rule of action?, non-promulgation, injustice in the shape of decision on points foreign to the merits, fiction, jurisprudentiality, language technical, distorted, obsolete, every thing that can help the light of the law under a bushel or converted into an ignis fatuus - topics that will need us as we advance.
20 May 1804
Evidence
False Ends
Ch. 1.
Of all pursuits /courses of nature/ that ever assumed to themselves the name of science, procedure - legal procedure - may with truth be stated, as that which has been directed with least fidelity towards those objects which, regard being had to the interest of the community, ought to have been accrued[?] for its ends.
Why? Because of all pursuits it has been that in which the interest of those on whom the course to be given to it has depended have been connected by the slightest ties with the interest of the public at large - in no one track of human action have interest and duty been so manifestly and almost irreconcilably at variance.
Consider them as a set of established and confederated depredators, conducting the business of depredation not by force but by fraud. Every thing is plain and easy: consider them as a set of public trustees, labouring honestly in the discharge of their trust, every thing will be found inexplicable.
June 1804
Procedure
Ends
Ch. False
' 2.1. Money.
1. Profit to the Sovereign in his private capacity.
In the bosom of the sovereign as in every other, the welfare of the governed is the true and proper end of government. In practice it ought to be taken for such: by which is meant neither more nor less than that it were better for them that it should be. There[?] in point of general utility. In point of fact, at the commencement of governments it never has been perhaps in any single instance. It is not at all natural that it should be. Man when he yields to the impulse of personal interest, swims with the stream: when to any other consideration he opposes it: and by what preponderant consideration should he be led to oppose it with effect?
As many become more and more enlightened, the resistance the quiet bloodless resistance - to measures by which the welfare of the people is sacrificed or thought to be sacrificed to the interest permanent or momentary - to the policy or caprice of the sovereign increases more and more. The particular and sinister interest of the individual or individuals of whom the sovereignty is concerned less and less consulted - the general interest of the whole community more and more.
Towards the acceleration of so desirable a change, constitutional law, a division and fortunate distribution of the powers of government does something, but civilisation, civilisation of the human intellect - in a word the increase and disseminisation of literature among persons of all ranks does more. In Denmark the Monarch is not less absolute than Morocco In Denmark, people are well governed, contented and happy, increasing in population as far as the obstacles of [...?] and climate[?] permit. In Morocco tyrannised, without security for person or property in the condition of counsels waiting to receive sentence. But in Denmark the people are civilised as in the rest of Europe: in Morocco barbarous borne upon two legs.