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Abridgments are inadequate succedanea for Consolidation.
1st because faithful ones are rare:
2. [even in the hands of one who has every qualification
for the task] because tho' an abridgment should eventually be
faithful, it is more than any one who has occasion to consult it can be sure
of.
An Abridgment is to the Idea substance what a Fac-simile
copy is to the external Symbol. It is equally
defective by being so well executed as too ill. It is not for every one to do what the of Hawkers have done in their copy of the Act In
one as in the other, the roughnesses, the blots & the
irregularities must have place no less than the
fairest and the smoothest strokes.
A person is obliged to have the Statutes at large and
an abridgment too: the abridgment to put things in
order, and give him a first conception: the Statutes
at large, to see that the abridger has done right. + + been faithful done his duty Thus
it is with the best abridgments, that while in one respect hand. view alleviate,
it lightens, in another it adds to the incumbrance.
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Amongst that infinite variety of compilations
with which the Law abounds already too much encumber'd by the original ones, is loaden. is one, with
the specious title of "Every man his own Lawyer.
Whether it is possible for every
man to be made a Lawyer by a book, is
more than I can tell: what I will not be positive about at present: but this I know, that
if it be, it must be by a book of the
Legislature's writing. The profession act they may be comforted need not be much alarmed: This catastrophe of the
profession if possible, is at the worst
a distant one.
A Either an Abridgment will not answer the
purpose; or it is the Abridgment that should
be the Law, and not the Act at large.
The very term "Abridgment" destroys the idea
of identity. An Abridgment is not the work
in question, but somthing shorter. How then
is it made shorter? By somthing that is
left out. What is that somthing? has it
sense or has it none. If it has sense, then
the Abridgment does not contain all the
sense that is in the original — it does not
truly represent the original. If it has
none, then ought it not any more to have
been in the original, than it is in the
Abridgment. A
COMPOS. Consolidation. Abridgments inadequate Succedanea
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Identifier: | JB/070/105/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 70.
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105 |
composit. consolidation - abridgments inadequate succedanea |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::gr [crown motif] [britannia with shield motif]]] |
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