JB/047/114/001

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9 August 1806
Evidence

I have shrunk from no difficulties. I have even
gone out of my way to meet them: that in no dark or odd corner
of the subject field, a doubt any thing like a doubt might remain
for the support of a phantasm so pernicious as
the reigning prejudice. The person, after all, for whose the
direction of whose conduct the question requires to be resolved
is – not the Judge, but the legislator: or thus in the case
of the legislator is it reconciliable to consistency, or to utility, to propriety
in any shape that he should suffer the existence of such a
rule?

I can see no rational answer, but in the negative.
In the whole assemblage of laws of which the existence
depends upon his your will, are there any bad ones? Away
with them then, but do not weaken or destroy the good ones.
Is it that there are some which not wanting the will you want
the power to destroy remove, fearing that the removal of them would
not be borne well by the people? An extraordinary case
this, but yet still let it be admitted not an absolutely impossible one
at least not an inconceivable one. Still the objection recurrs,
as before in the case of the Judge. Establish the rule, you cannot,
in the character of a general rule of evidence, without
diffusing its debilitative influence through over the whole body of
the laws: is it you being the legislator, is it possible that in the
whole field, wheat and tares corn and weeds together, the proportion of the tares
should be to such a degree predominant, and at the same time you so important as that to rid the field
of them, it should be worth while to apply destroy the scythe to the whole?
Desperate indeed in such a case must be the condition of the
state: and, you being the legislator, how happens it that the
opinions and affections of the people, over whom to who behold
and suffer you in the station of legislator, point one way, yours
pointing the opposite way? Have you no better means of making
your station position strong
and sure, than by undermining
it with
your hands?
Has the power of instruction been exhausted by you, and have you found it fruitless?

Identifier: | JB/047/114/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 47.
Date_1	1806-08-09	Marginal Summary Numbering	12-14
Box	047	Main Headings	evidence
Folio number	114	Info in main headings field	evidence
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e5
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	14982
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