JB/095/069/001

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Observations continued.

The quantum of a qualification is capable of being limitable to exactness on the side of by the number
of qualified persons to be found: a fact capable of being established, & which when established, cuts
off all dispute! It is altogether otherwise on that of ; on that side, arguments
shall point to any certain degree in the scale in exclusion of the rest, are what it is plainly
not in the nature of the subject to afford. What exact fortune shall be sufficient to fortify a
against the temptations to which the office may expose him, or to serve as a presumption of his possession,
the talents of entertaining the sentiments required for it, are questions that must ever be abandoned to
conjecture.

The 2d of these problems, to judge of facility by success, is far from being the easiest in the science to
resolve with accuracy. The names for the several divisions of property, however familiar they may
have become, by use, are unhappily, as we have already seen in one instance, so tainted with
as to be unfit for it; and those which might be substituted in the room of them, should they
even be universal and determinate, would, for a time at least, appear obscure for want of being familiar.
For all this there is no other remedy than definition; that capital expedient of legislative
discourse, so highly needed, & so little used.

For the purpose of the 3d of them, in this and most other Qualification Acts 2 separate sanctions
are provided; the one, civil — a penalty; the other religious (as it is cially termed) an oath.
On this occasion, it may be asked (since it seems it has been asked, why not trust to the ordinary
sanction of the civil penalty. To this question, as it is of considerable extent & importance, I will endeavour
to give an answer on behalf of the law.

In order to give to any Law its' effect against those who disobey it, it is necessary than some person
or other should be found to put it in motion, who, if, as here, he have no special interest already
to stimulate him to enforce it as a party grieved, must have it given to him in character of
informer. Now so odious invidious is that character, &, in the eyes of most men (fearful not without reason of
plunging into the unknown gulph of litigation) so precarious the profit of assuming it; that this
motive of itself might prove a weak dependance. The business is therefore is to find some means to
strengthen it; & these means are to be met with in an oath.

Identifier: | JB/095/069/001"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 95.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	095	Main Headings
Folio number	069	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles	observations continued
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::[gr with crown motif] [lion with vryheyt motif]]]
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	30955
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