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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 tion, 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 long
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 bear the appearance of nothing a captious refinement .
flatter'd with the title of the Legislature of Mankind, they have called the covert production of their own the Laws of Nature.
It is very true an obvious obj observation, It is very true & has often been observed that <add>an observation that is very true & has been often made</add> 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
represented by the other, as for that which it denotes at present. — Thus much be
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and that therefore that to compare on the application of in considering a single term to a single as applied singly to
Idea it can never be said to be erroneous and improper. . But the case becomes All this is very true.
far different, when after a term has been long originally appropriated to a given Idea
By turning to the ... v. Commentaries on the Laws of England Introduction ss.2. passion the reader will observe, how this error
it becomes afterwards applied to another which is not only distinct but oppos'd
it may then strictly be termed called erroneous, [when <add>as if the same term were applied indiscriminately to both Square and Circle.]</add> because by the necessity it introduces imposes
of perpetually counfounding making a man appear to say one thing while he means another distinct Ideas that should be distinct, it frustrates all the ends of language. —
If then this term of the Law of Nature be allowed to be improper, the distinction of make and make prohibits must fall along with it — It may however be retain'd if one pleases, to denote on the one hand such kinds of Action which are more uniformly & in a greater degree distinctive of public happiness , than on the other those words are so in a less degree and only in certain circumstances & certain places — tho' I believe after all, it will not be found a very easy matter to settle [with any accuracy] the boundaries of their classes
[From into An error of this sort viz subjects of great extension latitude practical importance, it has in the
observation of every body become the fertile source of public calamityties: [nor can I look upon
as a very inconsiderable one, that <add>this of which I am speaking be deemed an unimportant one which</add> transfused into a work calculated for the
instruction of a nation in the most important points, it has introduced along
with it a confusion which the elegance of stile while it palliates cannot dispell.]
The Division is a Sanction without any specific precepts —
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 but the mere opinions of men self-erected self-constituted into Legislators —
INTROD. Law - Division into Natural, Divine [BII], [ ] and Municipal.
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introd. law - division into natural, divine and municipal |
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erroneous division - its source, and consequences |
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jeremy bentham |
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