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They were wise without experience, virtuous
without principle, and social without motives
to society.
The Laws made by formed for a people whose virtue
render'd Laws impertinent; were treasured devolt in
their memory, without any one's having convey'd
it to their eyes or ears. It was a certain
kindly exhalation of the Soil, floating in the
atmosphere of these happy regions which mingling
itself with the vulgar air, found itself & way
through their lungs into their hearts: the same
which gives that virtue to our dogs & Gamecocks,
which then are so sure to love upon being when transplanted -ported
on a foreign soil.
Tis understand, In a word, it was would you know precisely what it was? it was precisely the same with that we have now —
with only such alterations as leave not, a single
trace worth boasting of, discernable. + + v. the list of 12 or 13 portions specimens of identity between the aboriginal & present Law: & so make references all along
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The Public may perhaps one day see, an attempt
to build up somthing in it's room. But at
any rate it will be of service to have demolished
error, though the ground should remain
sometime vacant. The right of a vacancy in the territories of knowledge, is an invitation to others as well as him that made it, to come in & build. a pressing & recognized public interest which includes all public private interests [are included] Simple ignorance is a
greater step friend than every one is aware to knowledge.
It gives the reins to inquiry when curiosity
gives the spur; to inquiry; and nor fails curiosity in
the certain offspring of a souce of interest.
to mount the <add>give it when interest gives the nod.</add>
Error plunges overturns the [human vehicle] mind motionless in quagmires;
or hurries it out of the road through over Rocks
& precipices.
Nor does the filling up of a vacancy thus made in
the territories of knowledge depend rest exclusively
in him who made it. In this great common,
a vacancy void space by whomsoever made or left invites
the first adventurer to come in and build.
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I know that these profound conceits are no
ways peculiar to our author: What nobody will contest with him is a state of continued elegance. that they are an
inheritance descended derived to him from his predecessors That they are the patrimony of a large great part of the profession: & through their means, of a still greater part of the world at large
but, in matter however it be with the Laws he
reports, as much ...... as is consistent with in matter of opinions, an institutional
writer without any express avowal makes those his adopts which he records his own. In
vain, when pressed by.
would he shift off the blame upon his fathers for
whose sins he [has made his own] suffers
Why gave them you unless you thought them
just? Why put your stamp upon them if unless you
thought found them base sterling
A Writer may deserve ill of the public on the
score of his very beauties, when by the influence
of their allurements he gains proselytes to
absurdity. for by the ...... In purchases buys
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[If] he or rather they (for this indiscretion has more than
one to share in it) sinister have no personal motives of their
own to accuse for having given birth to it.
It cannot be the child of envy: for thier interests & or
their fame & those of that distinguished personage
neither have, nor ever could have come into competition.
They could not neither can have sufferd nor imagined themselves
to have suffer'd any disobligation: they
have neither the honour to know or to be known.
It was not necessary. If "idem sentire de republica" "be a sufficient & the most generous foundation ground cause of attachment, "diversa sentire" is as sufficient & not less generous a ground of opposition.
The subject of it is so important, the merit of it the it's merit so
great, and the it's reputation, of it [it has possessed for
a number of years so much greater, that the
public is not a little concerned in entertaining
of it a just idea.
The very merit of a work may become a charge
[on occasion of evil] when in
a man finds a means of making way for opinions
of prejudicial influence.
BLACKSTONE X BARRINGTON II
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jeremy bentham |
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