JB/091/293/001

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24 Jany 1808

There is but one mode in which if the process called
the separation of the question of law from the question of fact
any precise idea can be conveyed: and from this every
man whose prosperity depends on the uncertainty of the law rule of action
will turn from with abhorrence.

Concerns that throughout the whole field of legislation and
judicature a survey having been having been surveyed by the legislative eye, the
legislator in every the legislative mind applying itself to every point and
portion of that field has conceived a will, and to that
will given expression by a determinate assemblage of words:
the whole of the rule of action is exactly thus in the form of Statute
law, the only real law. In this stage of things, a question
of law can never be either more or less than a question
concerning the import of one or more of those words.
The question may be confined to a single word, or it may
embrace extend itself over any number of words: but though on a given occasion every page in
the code were required to be confronted with every other, the question
would still be but a question of words a question concerning
the meaning of a determinate set of words.

Unhappily for mankind questions present questions of
law are and of jurisprud made under the sham sort of
law the improperly ca called Common or Unwritten law, than under the
real law as above described: what in this case is a
question of law? it is still but a question of words,
but those words are in this case the words not being having
be determined by the legislator, remain to be determined
by somebody else: but by and where are they to be
looked for? not in the any part of the body of real laws, for by the supposition it extends
not to the case.

Identifier: | JB/091/293/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 91.
Date_1	1808-01-24	Marginal Summary Numbering	7-8
Box	091	Main Headings	scotch reform
Folio number	293	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	d27 / e4
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	29289
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