JB/106/125/001

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7 March 1807

By In the word misdecision, were a wrong decision,
a vi termini the existence of some exterior standard
of rectitude is, as it can not but be, supposed.

Antecedently to the practice of legislation – to the habit
of issuing commands of a general nature on the
part of certain members of the community, accompanied
by a corresponding habit of obedience and conformity on
the part of all others or certain others the standard of rectitude
was at best but the vague idea of propriety, wheresoever
derived, in the mind of the Judge, applying itself to the cases
in hand on the carpet at the time.

The practice of legislation established the order determinate which to the extent
of it, supposes the standard of rectitude to have received the form of statutory law, the only determinate and generally cognoscible standard of rectitude was
composed of the words, or (as the phrase is) the tenor of the
law: the words employed by the legislator, in giving expression
to his will, in giving signification and notification to his
commands.

Unhappily for mankind, the standard of rectitude continues
even to this day for the most part in the state, (form in can
scarce be said to have) of jurisprudential law: but still,
such is the nature of that fleeting standard, that it can
not be so much as spoken of without fiction, without applying attributing
to this imaginary law the nature of real law, and speaking of it
no correspondent language, just as if it had a determinate
form of words belonging to it, whereas its essence consists in having
none. But of this further on.

Identifier: | JB/106/125/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 106.
Date_1	1807-03-07	Marginal Summary Numbering	9-12
Box	106	Main Headings	scotch reform
Folio number	125	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e4
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	34713
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