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3
LIBEL
my unfeigned thanks, & let me may I add his country's: I for my part confess my utter inability
to the task.
It is what I have been looking for with undissociated diligence and cannot: if
Here then let me fix at last — [I say a reasonable man, not a man
in general — for then conviction must follow prosecution of necessity,
& neither Jury nor Judge would have any thing to do; since the act
itself of prosecution would cut off all doubt <add>leave no doubt</add> shew that the prosecutor did not like to have that said,
him which he has prosecuted a man for saying
Now then the only way for the Jury if 'tis thing who [they] are to decide on what is
called the Law or the Judges if they alone are to decide it,
to determine what a reasonable man would not like to have said of being is to determine consider what
have to be turn from their irresolution they would not like to have said of themselves were they in the prosecutors'
situation.]
Now no man to who whether he deserved it, or deserved it not, were he to
chuse would have any thing said in the least tending towards his prejudice; nor is there any
man, but what who were he free from restraint would banish another for so saying speaking —
are the dictates of [human] nature — & these then according to the Law are to be follow'd
Now of whatever is said in print concerning persons, by much the greater part is rather
to their prejudice than to their advantage. More therefore than half [therefore] of what is
good bad & indifferent concerning public affairs would lose it's existence, and all the rest it's value
for praise is no praise when the censure is interdicted alternative is that or silence. Censure and Pro
being alike extinct, Public man would have nothing to hope from doing well to hope or fear from
doing ill to fear. They would have a clear interest to follow pursue every caprice of passion
& satiate every appetite for gain. Laws incommodious to these purposes, would not
at once indeed be cut off but gradually antiquated by inexacation, or new-modelled into
-cacy. I see no hiatus interruption chasm in this chain of consequences — it terminates in
alteration of our limited mixt into a pure monarchy. If this be according to M
Hume the Euthanasia, the easy Death to at the terms which or of a worse it our constitution must sooner
or later inevitably <add>fall suffer</add> arrive, I do not think consider {any more than that much-traduced injured Philosopher
we should be driven to precipitate ourselves into them by the stimulus of every present inconvenience pin's Prick
that every prick of a pin should stimulate us to precipitate ourselves into them. The
British Constitution is a fabric that has been admired, it would be might surely be worth taking some pains &
inconvenience to keep it together a little longer.
The distinction betwixt "men" & "measures" is to this purpose futile — for what are measures but men's actions? Blows, indeed are levelled at their persons: but words are either levelled at nothing or at men's their actions: [they are levelled at their character — but what is character but the turn of actions?] He who censures what is done, censures him who does it: The censure is not indeed so galling when the Idea of the person is not so expressly recalled called up as it here it is: a sort of run as it were is perceived to be holden upon it but still it is censure — & this is perfectly well felt & understood. besides allowing this distinction to be real, who, in a multitude of phrases that might be would undertake to trace it out? The distraction there fore is futile — nor is it warranted by the cases.
LIBEL.
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Identifier: | JB/070/176/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 70.
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070 |
of laws in general |
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176 |
libel |
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002 |
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text sheet |
2 |
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recto |
c3 / |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::[gr motif] [britannia with crown motif]]] |
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23291 |
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