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Where such a System of Jurisprudence once wrough up,
that could deserve the name of a natural one & Jurists of
the several civilized nations of Europe accustomed to refer
to it making it the common center of reference in their several
lucubrations a light kindled in one corner would shine
at once to the whole universe, & the Englishman might
read a commentary on his own Laws in the languages of
Spain or Sweden.
Unhappily there are as yet but 2 or 3 parts of the Globe —
where these even find no impediment or interior causes
can, from the dread of exterior can dare open their Mouths
with freedom, or to utter any other language on a great part
of this subject, those that imbecility or imposture: and these
parts in the comparison of the rest are but as prints.
A natural Classification sollicits and as it were compels forces the
judgment to exercise itself upon the maxim subjects which it it is made for comprehends.
The grand use benefit of a Natural perfect Classification will be discerned
in the distress which an [advocate] for a crime which
prejudice only has caused to be taken for such will be explicit
in his attempts to find for it a place. In his efforts he
will be seen to justle against apparent matter of fact. Viz:
that matters of fact [evidenced by experience] the existence of
which it is that justifies the station of the crime of which
it is predicated, & that cannot be traced out in the spurious
crime.
in the act to which
the appellation of
crime is given without
reason.
A good scheme of classification enoutes the judgment to
the exercise itself at the same time with the memory: the subject
learns how he is benefitted, at the same time that
he sees how he is restrained.
Whereas a superficial and unnatural Classification
casts a veil over the penetration of the Science, keeps men
from coming to an Issue in their discourses concerning
it, & adminster's [like the Widow's Crueze] an exhausted
pabulum for that sort of eloquence which baffles the efforts
of penetration by the falce clare it cases around the subject.
In the classification of an Intellectual subject like this that
which is most natural is also at the same time the most
scientific.
supposing the
Branches to be contradistinct
& opposite
CLASSIFIC. Natural. Use of.
---page break---
If this is natural, Blackste. is very unnatural it will be
seen how articles will here be assembled together under one
title from articles the most distant & desperate in that.
The hollowness of many a piece of legal reasoning and
impropriety of many a point of practise has no other source
than [is owing to nothing else than] a confused and
unnatural classification; whereby the application of
rules maxims that are delivered that are established has it's limits marked out
defined fashioned by names, and never by the exigencies of the same.
Thus we may be certain that every rule of practise that
is established for criminal proceedings as such, in contemplation
of their difference is incompitent in a variety
of cases to which it is applied; because as on the one
hand there are many cases, which being civil in their
nature are criminal in name, so on the other there
are many also which being civil in name are criminal
in nature. An Instance of the former sort do the Quo
Warrants Information a suit instituted merely to try
the Title of a corporate right between man & man & as
Punishment inflicted Indictments — against Parishes for
not mending their Roads: where the force normally assessed
is used merely as a means of obliging them to do
that duty. And which are only Civil Suits given to the
Crown (& from thence stiled criminal) merely for consolidation.
Instances of the latter are, Actions for Seduction, for
Adultory, for Scandal, for all manner of Corporal injuries
short of intentional Mayhem; to say of
Appeals for crimes punishable even with Death.
A good Classification recalls the attention perpetually,
and keeps it to the End.
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