JB/028/146/002

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Common Law. Reports and Treatises.

to Reports which how far they are to be admitted to sway the
belief, as true representations of certain matters of
fact: With respect to Treatises, which how far they are to
be admitted to sway the understanding, as just
conclusions in matter of opinion.

The idea here given of the function of a Law Treatise is not
it is true, altogether of a piece with that [which
our Author gives of it] given us of it by our Author.
This function he appears to have overlooked; and to have
for confined his attention only to another which is only the seems only to be an
an indirect and accidental one. Treatises He considers them
a merely such as so many succedanea to Reports: as
"evidence", to use his own words, "that cases have formerly
"happen'd in which such and such points were
"determined, which are now to become settled and
"first principles". Now a case perfectly easy to
conceive, and which may very well exist, is, that of
a Treatise proceeding entirely upon the foundation
of decisions, but those no other that what are there stated specified
and referred to. Of such a notion it could hardly That a treatise of such this a description
be said that it was entirely of an no treatise that is of this description is susceptible to any degree of
authority at all, is what I a man will hardly, I suppose, affirm; and yet by the supposition the authority
it possessed could not be given possessed belong to it in the light capacity
of an index to unspecified decisions.⊞ ⊞ Historical authority it would possess none: at the authority it possessed, if any, would be argumentative. This it is plain is precisely
what the sort of authority and the only sort
that could be possessed by any Treatise, where all the all decisions that were admitted to be taken for as grounds for future

Identifier: | JB/028/146/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 28.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering	not numbered
Box	028	Main Headings	comment on the commentaries
Folio number	146	Info in main headings field	common law reports and treatises
Image	002	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	b5 / e6 / b7 / e8
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::[monogram] [britannia emblem]]]
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections	jeremy bentham	Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	9411
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