JB/058/438/001

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2 July 1805
Evidence

§. Impropriety of considering the abuses of the technical system as
contrary to law – acknowledgement of the legality of it, and patience
under it is consisting with the freest censure.

A propensity which the views here given might be apt to
call forth into action, here demands our notice. It is among the
propensities which have all their roots to which in the technical system has given root. When
the mischiev in the eyes of a lawyer, the mischievousness of any
practice has become apparent understand judicial practice, no sooner does he recognize it or
profess pretend to recognize its mischievousness, then he attaches it on the
score ground of legality, and insists upon its being illegal. The idea
of legality So intimate in his mind have been is the connection between
the notion of what is and what ought to be, of natur original utility
of and positive law, of power and justice, that he knows not how
to them: the legality of a the practice being admitted or established,
the utility of it presents itself to him not so much as is thereby admitted or established also likewise.
It is not that the utility follows from the legality, that would suppose
the a commonness of the distinction: but to his mind the no such
distinction exists: both ideas present themselves to it at once
without any perception of the difference.

That a thorough bred lawyer bred under the technical system, should
admitt or even be internally convinced of the depravity of it, is may perhaps appear to be scarcely
within the powers of nature: but were such a thing to happen, another
probable consequences would be, to say no more, not to say are infallible, that he would
take for granted, or set himself to prove the illegality of it. He
would back dig down, he deeper and deeper into the abyss of antiquity, till at
last he would come to a period in which the technical system was
not yet formed erected in which the not so much as the foundations of it
were as yet laid. Being by this means carried beyond the commencement
of the system of nullities, he would attach it with its own
weapons: he would insist upon it that the system of nullities was itself
null and void.

Note
(a) This idea has actually
been pursued, not to speak
of topics of inferior importance
and of narrower extent
this idea has naturally been
pursued, on the subject of
imprisonment upon arrest for
debt.

Identifier: | JB/058/438/001"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 58.
Date_1	1805-07-02	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	058	Main Headings	evidence
Folio number	438	Info in main headings field	evidence
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	c1
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	19107
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