JB/028/069/001

Click Here To Edit

12

SECT: Parts of a Law.

Thus much for acts "crimes that are mala in se": we now
come to "things that are (he would not say "actions") in themselves indifferent",
which elsewhere called mala prohibita. We shall
see what the declaratory part of a Law does
with them.

⊞ ⊞ With them we flounder on, still lossed in the same whirlpool of [vague and] undefined and fluctuating expressions words amidst which starts up now and then something of a notion that is evidently false.
With them "the case", it seems "is entirely alter'd.
"These become right or wrong, just or unjust, duties
"or misdemeanours, according as the municipal legistlator
"sees proper, for promoting the welfare of the
"society, and more effectually carrying on the
"purposes of civil life".

As to right and wrong, just and unjust, I wash
my hands of them. All I had to say of them I
have said already: it's in vain to hunt after
the meaning of them any more. One thing may
be true of them as well as another, for any thing
I can have to say against it. But when we
come to duties and misdemeanours, we seem to be are got for once within
our knowlege. A duty is an act commanded.
A misdemeanour is an act forbidden. What then
are we to understand of commanded and forbidden
acts? Are we to understand once more that they
are commanded by the Legislator when he commands
them, and forbidden when he forbids them? Or that

Identifier: | JB/028/069/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 28.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	028	Main Headings	comment on the commentaries
Folio number	069	Info in main headings field	[[info_in_main_headings_field::sect. [ ] parts of a law]]
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f12 / b13 / f14 / b15
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::[gr with crown motif] propatria [britannia motif]]]
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	9334
Box Contents