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Erroneous division. it's Source, and consequences.
or [expressly] establish, are [not only different but] contradictory & inconsistent.
The Division I mean is that into Divine Law, Natural Law, Law of Revelation, Law of Nature and
Positive Law, Positive or Municipal.
Were I to be asked for a Definition of the a State of Nature, I could not give
a clearer or more characteristic definition of it, than this, that it was the State in
which Mankind were in, while there was no Law. And yet the practice of speaking of
that State as having a Law, a Law too that is to controul and perplex the operation
of Positive and real Laws, is become so inveterate, that to deny it's existence contest -, the propriety
of the appellation, must at first sight fear the appearance of nothing a captious refinement logomachy flattered with the title of the Legislator of Mankind, they have called the cobweb production of their own mind the Laws of Nature.
It is an obvious very true It is very true & has often been observed that an observation judged that is very true & has been often made obj observation and nothing can n there can not be a truer one, than there
is nothing in words that appropriates them more to one Idea than another
& that the Ideas of 2 Terms which we respectively employ to express by the words Ideas of a square &
circle The one, if custom had so order'd it, might as well have stood for the Idea
by the other, as for that which it denotes at present — Thus much never to be
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and that therefore that to compare in the application of in considering a single term as applied singly to to a single
Idea it can never be said to be erroneous and improper. By turning to the v. Commentaries on the Laws of England Introduction . 2. passim the reader will observe, how this error But the case becomes All this is very true.
far different, when after a term has been long originally appropriated to a given Idea,
it becomes afterwards applied to another which is not only distinct but opposite If then this term of the Law of Nature be allowed to be Superior, the distinction of in or and prohibits must fall along with it — It may however be retained if any one pleases, to denote on the one hand such kinds of Action which are more uniformly & in a greater degree destructive of public happiness, than on the other there were so in a less degree and only in certain circumstances & in certain places — tho' I believe after all, it will not be found a very easy matter to settle [with any assurity]
the boundaries of those classes [when as if the same term were applied indiscriminately to both square and Circle.]
it may then strictly be termed called erroneous, because by the necessity it introduces imports
of perpetually counfounding distinct Ideas, making a man appear to say one thing while he means another that should he distrust it frustrates all the ends of languages —
[ An error of this sort into in subjects of great extensive latitude practical importance, it has in
observation of every body. the fertile source of public calamity: -ties [nor can I
this of which I am speaking be deemed an unimportant it one which as a very inconsiderable one, that when transfused into a work calculated for the
instruction of a nation in the most important points, it has interduced along
with it a confusion which the elegance of Stile while it pollutes cannot dispell]
The Divine is a Sanction without any specific precepts — What is
called the Law of Nations being is either a part of Municipal Law or else
a precept without a Sanction [viz. a set of reciprocal precepts - or rather of compacts
without a Sanction] What is called the Law of Nature is neither a precept
nor a Sanction but the mere opinions of men self-erected self-constituted into Legislators -
INTROD. Law - Division into Natural, Divine [BR], [ ] and Municipal.
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Identifier: | JB/096/108/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 96.
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096 |
legislation |
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108 |
introd. laws civil & criminal |
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002 |
division - all laws penal |
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recto |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::[gr with crown] [britannia with shield motif]]] |
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