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23 Feby 1806
Evidence
The good of the people, it has been already stated, was no more
the object of the judges in the construction of the jurisprudential system
than it was of William the Conquerer in the invasion of England, or
of Mahomet in his victorious expeditions.
But it would be an error to suppose that if it were supposed
that the opposition of interests between the conquerers and the
conquered in these or any other schemes of conquest was anything near to
compleat and permanent essential land irreconciliable as between the man of law judge under the technical
system and the people in the character of suitors. The distress which
the conquerer has an interest is urged by his interest in producing is but in comparison but
momentary: the submission of being now secured, the prosperity force
of the people is his power, their opulence is his opulence. Even their
happiness is in some sort his happiness: few indeed are the tempers
so wayward and morose, as not to prefer wish choose being surrounded with smiling
rather than with glaring countenances.
The distress which the man of law has an interest in producing
is permanent perpetual as well as extensive all-comprehensive: his business occupation consists in
fishing in troubled waters: and that sport may never be wanting
his interest is that the waters should be never be in any other than a
troubled state: the liver must be continually growing in a growing state, that the
vulture may be never without his food.
A conquerer may The dominion of the a conquerer being maintained founded
in by force, may be maintained by the same means, without any
very considerable prejudice to the intellectual faculties of the public condition of the public mind,
the dominion of the man of law jurist being founded on fraud and imposition,
it is essential to it, that so far as the of knowledge service it
what a few whatsoever part of the public mind is turned towards
this object could kept in an enfeebled a rickety and distorted state. If a particular
kind of superstition is necessary to the dominion of priest craft
superstition though differently modified is no less necessary to the dominion
of lawyer craft. The superstition necessary to nourished by lawyer craft is even in
several points of view, more abject more pregnant with absurdity and degrading. What the The idol which
the of priestcraft tremble at and bow down to, is a something which they never saw, which they do not know.
Identifier: | JB/047/192/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 47.
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1806-02-03 |
not numbered |
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047 |
evidence |
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192 |
evidence |
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001 |
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text sheet |
1 |
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recto |
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jeremy bentham |
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15060 |
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