JB/047/093/001

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3 Jany 1804
Evidence

§. Evidence excluded by microscopic particles of interests

Microscopic interests It is a lamentable sight to see a being endowed with reason, pushing
in a – the application of a principle to cases in which
he himself is as well satisfied as any body can be, that the fact
assumed by it is impossible. What a man might get by his evidence
is not worth so much as a farthing: were it lying before him in the tunnel,
he would not stoop to pick it up. Yet he must What then? may he not
be suffered to speak? Oh no – that he must not. Why so? – because so
sure as he does, he perjures himself.

What may indeed happen without difficulty, is – that a man shall
perjure himself, and that a profit value a farthing, or a fraction of a
farthing, shall accrue to him from the perjury. What never did happen –
nor in the nature of man ever can happen, is that in any such case
the profit to that amount should have been the cause and inducement to
the perjury. If, by the impute of any other sinister interest, a
man be drawn into the crime, it is not the farthing to be gained
by it that will stop restrain him: but it is just as capable of restraining
him from the crime, as of driving him into it. That a man should
committ theft for a farthing is possible: because it may be the work of a a moment may be sufficient
for it. That a man should committ perjury for a farthing is not possible:
Why not? – because it would cost him a day's attendance.

I take a farthing, because in England it is the least sum that
the hand a man can take for any purpose.⊞ ⊞ But the appetite for absurdity
and calumny does not stop
there. Not it indeed: for
be it proven that But a an entire farthing is a treasure,
in comparison of the fraction that has served English lawyers for a pretence
for pronouncing the whole body of the people liars; and such from whom truth is
hopeless.

The Pharisees have been described to us, as a set of lawyers, who
would strain at a gnat, while swallowing down a camel. Applied to
any Jewish lawyers, this was an hyperbole, and meant to be so. But in an
English lawyer we may see a man – (we have seen it already over and over)
who will swallow a whale, and then strain at an .

Identifier: | JB/047/093/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 47.
Date_1	1804-01-03	Marginal Summary Numbering	1-4
Box	047	Main Headings	evidence
Folio number	093	Info in main headings field	evidence
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	d25 / e1
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals	john herbert koe	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	14961
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