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Jurisprudence
Contents:
I. The End of Jurisprudence, viz. the Protection of Rights.
II. The Protection of Rights.
III. What is Required for the Perfection of the Civil Code.
IV. What is Necessary to the Perfection of the Penal Code.
V. The Doctrine of Punishment.
VI. The Code of Procedure.
VII. The Judicial Establishment.
***
An excerpt from the beginning:
I. The End of Jurisprudence,
viz. the Protection of Rights.
The end of Jurisprudence, viz. the Protection of Rights.—Importance of the Inquiry, as involving Human Happiness.—Confusion in the vulgar uses of the word Right.—Use of the term Right, in the Science of Jurisprudence.—The principal ideas involved in the Jurisprudential sense of the word Right.—All Rights respect Objects desired; and desired as means to an end.—The Objects of Rights are twofold, viz. either Persons or Things.—Rights, when closely inspected, mean Powers—legalized Powers.—Powers over Persons, and Powers over Things.—Every Right imports a corresponding Obligation.—No Creation of Good, by Rights, without the Creation of Evil.
THE object and end of the science which is distinguished by the name of Jurisprudence, is the protection of rights.
The business of the present discourse is, therefore, to ascertain the means which are best calculated for the attainment of that end.
What we desire to accomplish is, The protection of rights: What we have to inquire is, The means by which protection may be afforded.
That rights have hitherto been very ill protected, even in the most enlightened countries, is matter of universal acknowledgment and complaint. That men are susceptible of happiness, only in proportion as rights are protected, is a proposition, which, taken generally, it is unnecessary to prove. The importance of the inquiry, therefore, is evident.
It is requisite, as a preliminary, to fix, with some precision, what we denote by the expression rights. There is much confusion in the use of this term. That disorderly mass, the Roman law, changes the meaning of the word in stating its division of the subject, Jura Personarum, and Jura Rerum. In the first of these phrases, the word Jura means a title to enjoy; in the second, it must of necessity mean something else, because things cannot enjoy. Lawyers, whose nature it is to trudge, one after another, in the track which has been made for them, and to whose eyes, that which is, and that which ought to be, have seldom any mark of distinction, have translated the jargon into English, as well as into other modern languages.
This is not all the confusion which has been incurred in the use of the word right. It is sometimes employed in a very general way, to denote whatever ought to be; and in that sense is opposed to wrong. There are also persons—but these are philosophers, pushing on their abstractions—who go beyond the sense in which it is made to denote generally whatever ought to be, and who make it stand for the foundation of whatever ought to be. These philosophers say, that there is a right and a wrong, original, fundamental; and that things ought to be, or ought not to be, according as they do, or do not, conform to that standard. If asked, whence we derive a knowledge of this right and wrong in the abstract, which is the foundation and standard of what we call right and wrong in the concrete, they speak dogmatically, and convey no clear ideas.
I. The End of Jurisprudence, viz. the Protection of Rights.
II. The Protection of Rights.
III. What is Required for the Perfection of the Civil Code.
IV. What is Necessary to the Perfection of the Penal Code.
V. The Doctrine of Punishment.
VI. The Code of Procedure.
VII. The Judicial Establishment.
***
An excerpt from the beginning:
I. The End of Jurisprudence,
viz. the Protection of Rights.
The end of Jurisprudence, viz. the Protection of Rights.—Importance of the Inquiry, as involving Human Happiness.—Confusion in the vulgar uses of the word Right.—Use of the term Right, in the Science of Jurisprudence.—The principal ideas involved in the Jurisprudential sense of the word Right.—All Rights respect Objects desired; and desired as means to an end.—The Objects of Rights are twofold, viz. either Persons or Things.—Rights, when closely inspected, mean Powers—legalized Powers.—Powers over Persons, and Powers over Things.—Every Right imports a corresponding Obligation.—No Creation of Good, by Rights, without the Creation of Evil.
THE object and end of the science which is distinguished by the name of Jurisprudence, is the protection of rights.
The business of the present discourse is, therefore, to ascertain the means which are best calculated for the attainment of that end.
What we desire to accomplish is, The protection of rights: What we have to inquire is, The means by which protection may be afforded.
That rights have hitherto been very ill protected, even in the most enlightened countries, is matter of universal acknowledgment and complaint. That men are susceptible of happiness, only in proportion as rights are protected, is a proposition, which, taken generally, it is unnecessary to prove. The importance of the inquiry, therefore, is evident.
It is requisite, as a preliminary, to fix, with some precision, what we denote by the expression rights. There is much confusion in the use of this term. That disorderly mass, the Roman law, changes the meaning of the word in stating its division of the subject, Jura Personarum, and Jura Rerum. In the first of these phrases, the word Jura means a title to enjoy; in the second, it must of necessity mean something else, because things cannot enjoy. Lawyers, whose nature it is to trudge, one after another, in the track which has been made for them, and to whose eyes, that which is, and that which ought to be, have seldom any mark of distinction, have translated the jargon into English, as well as into other modern languages.
This is not all the confusion which has been incurred in the use of the word right. It is sometimes employed in a very general way, to denote whatever ought to be; and in that sense is opposed to wrong. There are also persons—but these are philosophers, pushing on their abstractions—who go beyond the sense in which it is made to denote generally whatever ought to be, and who make it stand for the foundation of whatever ought to be. These philosophers say, that there is a right and a wrong, original, fundamental; and that things ought to be, or ought not to be, according as they do, or do not, conform to that standard. If asked, whence we derive a knowledge of this right and wrong in the abstract, which is the foundation and standard of what we call right and wrong in the concrete, they speak dogmatically, and convey no clear ideas.
- GenresPhilosophy
68 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 26, 2008
2 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
James Mill
171 books18 followersJames Mill (born James Milne) was a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher. He is counted among the founders of the Ricardian school of economics. His son, John Stuart Mill, was also a noted philosopher of liberalism, utilitarianism and the civilizing mission of the British Empire.
Although he never set foot in India at any time in his life, James Mill took upon himself the task of writing the monumental History of British India, a classic of colonial self-congratulation which contains a complete denunciation and rejection of Indian culture and civilisation and which both exhorts and extolls the civilizing mission of the British in the subcontinent. He was the first writer to divide Indian history into three parts: Hindu, Muslim and British, a classification which has proved surpassingly influential in the field of Indian historical studies, but which is seen in recent decades as being deeply problematic.
Although he never set foot in India at any time in his life, James Mill took upon himself the task of writing the monumental History of British India, a classic of colonial self-congratulation which contains a complete denunciation and rejection of Indian culture and civilisation and which both exhorts and extolls the civilizing mission of the British in the subcontinent. He was the first writer to divide Indian history into three parts: Hindu, Muslim and British, a classification which has proved surpassingly influential in the field of Indian historical studies, but which is seen in recent decades as being deeply problematic.
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