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CERTAINTY. EVIDENCE
I see not that there is any crime except Perjury that furnishes a pretence for repelling rejecting
absolutely the testimony of a witness. I know not how it may be with other men, but for
my own part, I feel much less repugnancy abstracted from the temporal danger at the Idea of stealing committing Theft or Robbery or
Burglary, or many other acts crimes which under the denomination of Felony happen to have a greater
punishment affixed to them than Perjury, than at wilfully taking a false Oath — to that judging
from my own feelings, & I cannot well make myself witness to any other, I conclude that the inference is by
means just from the readiness commission of any of those, to the readiness to committ this other.
In all this together, the reader will I think have here a System of absurdity that is hardly to be parallelled. That very Jurisprudence which has established the rule, has given judgment against its propriety
in a thousand instances — There are men every day whose The testimony of men is every day purchased by with impunity, the
very reason that they have been concerned in those crimes which come under that denomination Felony
Many of those crimes which are such as have not the most remote connection influence on with credibility
It is pleasant to consider, that of those heroes of classic antiquity, who were the ornaments of those
times from which men are fond of fetching models examples of those times which generated those sentiments of integrity which passes among us as proverbial of integrity every kind of virtue & virtue, scarce one
to whom actions were not familiar any one instance of which if properly recorded, would among
us for ever debar him from giving testimony.
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this much a slight presumptive of a fact, which whether it has happened or no, is susceptible of a proof altogether as certain as that from which it is so precariously inferred. What follows I mention suggest with that diffidence which the difficulty of the subject, & the
of the general repugnance of the opinions not to be opposed by any convincing trenchant arguments of mankind wise men must respond.
I am persuaded, those whoever they are, who established this doctrine, could never have taken an
deliberate view of its consequences: effects which are no less & in some respects worse than the delivering up the unhappy object gagged and
bound to any injuries short of death, from any menaces which which any of the ... passions may at any time raise up against him I do not say that my confidence in any man's testimony would not be greatly shaken by the production of those .....
It is putting on him as to every other effect the old caput Lupinum of outlawry
If may I can but get such an one alone, I may beat him, so as just to leave life in him, to the full
satiating of my vengeance — it I may cut any man's throat do this & worse to any man in in his presence — if the person be a woman
I may violate her: with horror, I speak it, if of the other sex, there is no protection.
Another notion which is in the Law is, that a v the which to provide in a supposition which very
often in abundant instances is as untrue as it is injurious, that a witness must necessarily with one [or other]
party, & particularly with him who calls him. If he is firm, then all the consequences follow which I have described: if he yields, then mark the mighty service benefit achievement wrought by bringing him within the pale of orthodoxy: he A Quaker must he renounces his Religion as a prelude to his being believed. He renounces his Religion to prove his regard for the Solemnities of Religion. The Testimony of such an one perjured may so full with & explain a chain of other evidence which without it would be incomplete, as to leave no doubt in the mind of him who hears it.
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Identifier: | JB/051/023/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 51.
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051 |
evidence; procedure code |
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023 |
certainty evidence |
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001 |
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text sheet |
1 |
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recto |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::gr [crown motif] [britannia with shield motif]]] |
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16188 |
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