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It is sometimes a useful & oftenner still an amusing
eng object to trace the errors of a great man to their
"He must necessarily be subject to the
source. — Whence <add>How came our Author to fall into this</add>
"will of his Creator:" — "He must inevitably
confusion of ideas? How could he descant so gravely on
"take the will of him, on whom he depends,
the action of inactive matter? On the obligation of
"as the rule of his conduct:"—" It is necessary
unconscious Being? On acts of superiority exercised &
"that he should in all points conform to
of inferiority allowed by one & the same Being over
"his maker's will." If this representation
himself? On the free agency of a Being tied down by
be true, what occasion for a system of laws?
absolute necessity?— <add>There was one thing our
Author could do: that is,Gentle reader! He could read.—
read. There is another thing he could not do: this is, extract the spirit of what he
</add>
To what purpose does the learned professor
read! It is with this commentator, as with so many other Commentators: his appetite
is better than his Digestion. But the powers of digestion do not always keep pace
take so much pains to prove the a conformity
with the voracity of the appetite:
which does not exist
between the laws of England, and the laws
[Our author had pored over] Montesquieu.— And <add>he had read. Montesquieu
had written upon Laws in general in a manner almost as unintelligible, tho' not
quite so inconsistent. The errors of Montesquieu were the errors of an original genius
</add>
of God. And, that conformity supposed, why
struggling under the heap of confusion accumulated by his predecessors. A great part
of this heap he has contributed to remove. The tasks of Montesquieu are daunting to
our Author.
[there] he had found as follows:— "Tous les etesont Esp. des Loix. L.1 C.l
is he so eloquent in enforcing obedience to
"leurs loix: la Divinite a ses loix: — le monde materiele ses
these laws? this is all labor lost, if man is
"loix: les intelligences superieur a l'homme ont leurs
necessitated to obey the laws of his maker if Creator
"loix, les betes ont leurs loix: l'homme a ses loix." —
Man <add>in And</add>
3) 7)
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Identifier: | JB/096/004/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 96.
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096 |
comment on the commentaries |
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004 |
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001 |
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collectanea |
4 |
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recto |
c7 / c8 / c9 / c10 |
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168 |
[[watermarks::gr [quartered royal arms motif]]] |
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[[notes_public::"to be copied" [note not in bentham's hand]]] |
31008 |
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