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ERRONEOUS DIVISION - its source and consequence (12
GROTIUS
[#] The errors, the obscurity, the gratuitous positions, the contradictions, the visionary and
unsubstantial arguments, the enormous voluminousness become almost as good an
evil as any of the rest, with which this above most other subjects of human Intel Intillect
according to by the confession of all has been oppressed, will be found, or I am much
mistaken, to owe their origin to this one simple cause.
To the error, I mean, in which Jurists not less the Theoretical than the pra practical
those who undertook to make composed Systems of their own than those whose p
it was to give an account of those al- ready made, composed of assigning I know not
what unintelligible ends & purposes of Human Actions & Human the Laws
which were are to guide them, either to the express exclusion, or the silent
neglect of the principle of General Utility.[+] [+] An end A principle, to which every human regulation that can be justified is capable of an intelligible justification in an intellige may be by a prosecution of the method above sketched out shewn to bear a manifest subservience.
Of express exclusion, to verify an assertion, of which some might otherwise with
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difficulty conceive the truth, Grotius shall be my example. Prolegomena 26
"What therefore+ + Note r. also Mare Lib. ad iuit. As the word therefore came to refer to a preceding argument I shall submitt to give the Reader in the original the argument & ye conclusion together § 15 Prolegomena p. 12. "Deinde vero &c [(says that cloudy bewilder'd Jurist)] is said not only by Corniades but others "a
Utility is the mother of Right", to speak accurately is not true: for the mother of natural Law is
Human Nature herself, which although we stood in need of nothing" (a position which this
one should have thought required a somwhat better proof than a bare assertion would
carry us to desire mutual Society. Resolving at the outset not to search for the original of Justice where only it is to be found we one need not wonder, that if neither hath he found, nor will any other find it, who shall persist to search for it in his steps. But the Mother of Civil Law is the very
Obligation from consent, which who having her power from Natural Law, Nature may
be said also to be the Great Grandmother of the latter. Yet But Utility is an
"accession to", (or "approaches to" or "is connected with" or "comes near to" as the Reader pleases (for thus vague is
the expression) to Natural Law — for it was the Will of the Author of Nature
singly we should be weak and in want of many things towards the carrying
on of life, that we may be the more forcibly driven to the cultivation of society
and Utility gave the occasion to Civil Law: for that consociation or subjection which
we have mentioned began to be instituted for the sake of some utility —
they who prescribe Laws to others in doing so either do or ought to look for some
utility"
INTROD. Pr. of Utility reprobated — Grotius [BR][ ][
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introd. pr of utility reprobated - grotius |
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erroneous division - its source and consequences / grotius |
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