JB/028/146/004

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Common Law. Reports and Treatises.

in the treatment are it to be received as indirect testimony of a
work of fact: viz: the exact of a particular decision to
such an effect. It ⊞ ⊞ How a Law Treatise may seem as a succedaneum to a Book of Reports, by seeming being made to serve as an index to of unapparent decisions, may [serve as a succedaneum to a Report] be made to do the office of a report, how can a work of the argumentative kind may be transformed, as it were, into an historical one, may be thus conceived. Take any passage of such an argumentative a treatise. The purport &c
The purport of it this passage is to lay
down as the result of argumentation, a general rule of Law: which rule this rule to warrant
it, requires certain decisions to such a certain effect to have
been made. Now then by adhering By admitting then the legitimacy of
this rule, you allow admitt and assume the existence of these decisions.

This is the end then which our Author mentions may it is true be one use and function of a Law
Treatise: but it is only an direct one: an use
which is made of it only out of necessity: and which,
when where that necessity ceases, is no longer made of it. It
is used as presumptive evidence of the existence of
decisions to such or such an effect: but it is used as such only on supposition
that there are no direct accounts of decisions on that
behalf extant. Produce such the decision themselves; if conformable,
if they supersede it: if unconformable, they over-rule
it.⊞ ⊞ What one cannot help acknowledging on this occasion is, that the the argument, in this should any such case as this turns in a circle. Taking this that in question for a genuine rule of Law, we regard conclude in favour of the existence of certain such decisions as are requisite to warrant support it. And then back again, assuming the existence of decisions we, its back take the genuine rule of Law conclude in favour of this as a genuine rule of Law.

The direct function of a Law Treatise within be genuine answer to the the requisite
may be thus conceived. Decisions, to a given effect, being given, what is the general rule
of Law to be deem deduced from them? [The answer to the
question is the business of a paragraph Law
Treatise.] The direct and natural function of a Law Treatise,
on any subject is to give answer to this questions.

Thus much however we are to understand from
our author, that in respect of Law Treatises there
is a line to be drawn between such as are
and such as are not of authority is to be drawn somewhere: and that the
place, the it is by antiquity, that the place, the locus of the if one may so say of that line, is
in part at least, to be determined. in part at least by

Identifier: | JB/028/146/004 "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	004	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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