Default

“ Default in compliance with a statute renders the defaulter liable to action by the person aggrieved or to indictment if the matter of command is of public concern, subject in either case to the qualification that the statute may limit the remedy for the default to some particular proceeding specifically indicated ”

“ And we do further promise, every one for himselfe, that shall fayle to be ready through his own default by the day appointed, to pay for every day's default the sum of £3, to the use of the rest of the Companie who shall be ready by the same day and time.
Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Dudley, William Vassall, Nicholas West, Isaac Johnson, John Humfrey, Thomas Sharpe, Increase Nowell, John Winthrop, William Pinchon, Kellam Broune, William Colburn. ”

“ Even temporary defaults by some handlers may work unfairness to others, encourage wider non-compliance, and engender those subtle forces of doubt and distruct which so readily dislocate delicate economic arrangements. ”

“ But, it will perhaps still be said, where is the rule by which you may distinguish the accidental defect, from that which belongs to the nature of things, and which it is impossible to exclude?—Men to whom nature has given only ears, ask questions of this kind; and those who have an ear shrug their shoulders. ”

“ Destroy the volitional nature, the definite subjective purposes, preferences, fondness for certain effects, forms, orders, and not the slightest motive would remain for the brute order of our experience to be remodelled at all. But, as we have the elaborate volitional constitution we do have, the remodelling must be effected, there is no escape. ”

“ If an institution were discovered to have the slightest defect in principle, or to have degenerated a little in practice, their first step was to abolish it entirely, and leave the replacing it for the present to chance, and for the future to their successors. ”

“ The duce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this affair—and if I had one—as I do all things out of all rule—I would twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had done—Am I warm? I am, and the cause demands it—a pretty story! is a man to follow rules—or rules to follow him? ”

“ Could blind chance constitute order and decorum, and consequently a providence? That wisdom, order, and design should be the production of nonentity, or of chaos, confusion, and old night, is too absurd to deserve a serious confutation, for it supposeth that there may be effects without a cause, viz.: produced by nonentity, or that chaos and confusion could produce the effects of power, wisdom, and goodness. Such absurdities as these we must assent to, or subscribe to the doctrine of a self-existent and providential being. ”

“ Each supposing to be in the right, no one was. A hundred systems raised one upon the other clashed and were broken in turn. Experience, invoked by all parties, has taken all colours and its opposed judgments were self-destructive. ”

“ Shall we strive to make the matter plain, in a single instance, by assigning an efficient cause to an act of the will? If so, whether we escape the mystery or not, we shall certainly plunge into absurdity. We shall embrace a doctrine, which denies the nature of action, and which is necessarily involved in the great absurdity of an infinite series of causes. For my part, I prefer a simple statement of the fact of volition, with its attendant circumstances, how much soever of mystery it may seem to leave around the subject, to any explanation which involves it in absurdity. ”

“ When the characteristics which belong to a kind and make it a kind were considered as the attributes of distinct entities, called essences, then the name was considered to be one of these essential attributes or properties by which the class was designated. Thus a fallacy was made to breed a fallacy, and the two fallacies grew up together and are often connected, and how can you dispel the fallacy of essence without dispelling the fallacy of inherent name? Thus a pair of ghosts stalk the world together, and fight each other’s battles. ”

“ For every property, therefore, in facts, or in our mode of considering facts, which leads us to believe that they are habitually conjoined when they are not, or that they are not when in reality they are, there is a corresponding kind of Fallacy; and an enumeration of fallacies would consist in a specification of those properties in facts, and those peculiarities in our mode of considering them, which give rise to this erroneous opinion. ”

“ To him, his particular code, surrounded by all the sanctions of custom, law, and religion, appears earth-embracing, hell-deep, and heaven-piercing, and any human creature who follows any other code appears fatally wicked, utterly shameless, and ineluctably lost. ”

“ Habituated from childhood to the forms of subordination at present existing—regarding these as parts of a natural and permanent order—finding satisfaction in supremacy, and conveniences in the possession of authority; the regulators of all kinds remain unconscious that this system, made necessary as it is by the defects of existing human nature, brings round penalties on themselves as well as on those subordinate to them, and that its pervading theory of life is as mistaken as it is ignoble. ”

“ A certain impatience of decision leads people frequently to pronounce upon as anomalies, [Pg 185] what a severer scrutiny would prove to be well understood, and belonging to accredited divisions of human character. ”

“ MATTER AS THE INFINITE IN ITSELF.
15. Let us further examine if the indeterminate, or infinite, be an accident, or an attribute of some other nature; how it comes to be an accident, and whether privation ever can become an accident. The things that are numbers and reasons are exempt from all indetermination, because they are determinations, orders, and principles of order for the rest. ”

“ This contravention of the natural order has produced, as such contravention always must produce, a certain confusion and false movement, of which we are now beginning to feel, in almost every direction, the inconvenience. In all directions our habitual causes of action seem to be losing efficaciousness, credit, and control, both with others and even with ourselves. Everywhere we see the beginnings of confusion, and we want a clue to some sound order and authority. ”

“ Whenever in the course of our reasoning we are involved in error, either the conclusion follows from the premisses or it does not. If it does not, the fault must lie in the process of reasoning, and we have then what is called a Logical Fallacy. If, on the other hand, the conclusion does follow from the premisses, the fault must lie in the premisses themselves, and we then have what is called a Material Fallacy. ”

“ What evidence is there that our codes and conformities which perform exactly the same rôle, and are mostly traditional survivals, are any the less outlandish and irrational? May they not be tainted with the same purposelessness? Is not the inference irresistible that they are? ”

“ The fallacy of accident, we have learned, occurs when one reasons from a general truth to an accidental case; whereas the fallacy of division obtains when one reasons from a collective use of a term to a distributive use; in both cases the procedure is from a larger unit to a smaller unit. Moreover, with converse accident and composition, the movement is from the smaller unit to the larger. ”

“ And in another clause, where it is said, "No state shall lay any impost, or duties," &c., the terms imposts and duties are synonymous. Pleonasms, tautologies, and the promiscuous use of terms and phrases, differing in their shades of meaning, (always to be expounded with reference to the context, and under the control of the general character and manifest scope of the instrument in which they are found,) are to be ascribed, sometimes to the purpose of greater caution, sometimes to the imperfections of language, and sometimes to the imperfection of man himself. ”

“ I maybe allowed to add, that many individuals, and amongst them men as keen in the detection of error as unmerciful in its exposure, have assured me, that after taking up the pamphlet for the purpose of tracing out the fallacy on which, in their full belief, its suggestions were founded, after perusing and re-perusing, examining and comparing, after trying the chain as a whole and striking it link by link, they became convinced of its perfect soundness, and satisfied that the only error was in their own previous conceptions. ”

“ If you can't be more original than that.
Against such things they have a justified rule,
They expel you without benefit of doubt,
But if you hide the answers in your slide rule,
It's 8 to 5 that no one will find out. ”

“ Whatsoever faults of management are properly attributable to them—and there are many—are easily traceable to that system itself, which, from its very nature, has always been, and must continue to be, inflexible. ”

“ Many thanks to my friend's friends for not mentioning the Budget: had my friend's attention been directed to it I might have lost a striking example of the paradoxer in search of a patron. That my Friend was on this scent in the first letter is revealed in the second. Language was given to man to conceal his thoughts; but it is not every one who can do it.
Among the most valuable information which my readers will get from me is comparison of the reactions of paradoxers, when not admitted to argument, or when laughed at. ”

“ So that I think we may conclude, that, in propositions, where though the proofs in view are of most moment, yet there are sufficient grounds to suspect that there is either fallacy in words, or certain proofs as considerable to be produced on the contrary side ; there assent, suspense, or dissent, are often voluntary actions. ”

“ But let it be seriously recollected, that the very word exceptions implies the generality of the rule, and that the man cannot be very wise, who endeavours to persuade himself, that he shall, in the great day of final account, be included in these exceptions. ”

“ I cannot doubt that the very business contemplated by the rule would be discussed directly, plainly, briefly, according to the essential nature of the question, even without any restriction. But, if unnecessary, why make a change which will look so ill that it were better to bear inconvenience rather than have such a deformity? ”

“ Reports of such single defects will as a rule lead only to correspondingly partial improvements in the system and to relief from the most onerous perplexities, since it is seldom found possible to organize the system of a whole province at once in such a way as to make one harmonious whole. ”

“ Similarly, a parenthesis may be added to tell us that within the limits of the defining clause we have perfect freedom of choice:
Choose men who, at one time or another, have held office.
They must have held office, that is all; it does not matter when.
(iii) Words of comment, indicating the writer's authority for his limitation, his recognition of the sentiments that it may arouse, and the like, properly stand outside the defining clause: when they are placed within it, they ought to be marked as parenthetic. ”

“ If conditions which are local, temporal, and individual, are fixed as constant rules, and carried beyond their proper limits, are systematized as a valuable formalistic code, unavoidable error arises. ”

“ When instructions are asked, they should be precise and certain, to a particular intent; that the point intended to be raised may be distinctly seen by the court, and that error, if one be made, may be distinctly assigned. ”

“ But does it follow that because the people make mistakes in so simple a matter as the selection of their agents, they would be infallible in the incomparably more complex and difficult task of the enactment and interpretation of laws? ”

“ This mode of drawing up a bill of exceptions is defective, as the material facts or proofs on which the instructions rest should be inserted before the instructions, in order that we may see if the points arise on which they are given, and to which exception is taken. ”

“ Those who suffer by the debasement of the standard, We must, therefore, enter into a more particular examination of those opposite and jarring interests; we must inquire into the interests 590which have suffered, and which continue to suffer, from the actual debasement of the standard, and into those which must suffer upon a restitution of it according to the plan proposed. ”

“ But the distinguishing characteristic of all defectives, within or without our public institutions, is defective inhibition,—they are unable to control the spontaneous impulses that continually arise, and which may indeed be normal. ”

“ Or, if it could be said, that the objects have the power of changing their own arrangements and conditions, then also we must ask, why at one time the objects arrange themselves to make the right and rational appear most agreeable, and at another time, the wrong and foolish. ”

“ Adhaerence To Custome, From Ignorance Of The Nature Of Right And Wrong Ignorance of the causes, and originall constitution of Right, Equity, Law, and Justice, disposeth a man to make Custome and Example the rule of his actions ”

“ And the judicial kind is itself also distributed under two divisions,—one absolute, and one which takes in something besides as an addition, and which may be called assumptive. The absolute division is that which of itself contains in itself an inquiry into right and wrong. ”

“ Falsehood, fraud, a willingness to deceive, a desire for the power and distinction of office, a readiness to use base means in obtaining office—these vices are sown with a pretty even hand upon both parties, and spring up with such blossoms and such a fruitage as we all see. ”

“ Thus, the example given above to illustrate fallacia accidentis, 'that, since it is just to take interest, it is right to exact it from one's own father,' may also be regarded as petitio principii, if we consider the unconditional statement of the premise—'to take interest upon a loan is perfectly just' ”

“ Those who would wish you to believe that the faults in the system proposed are wholly or principally owing to the difference of state interests, and proceed from that cause, are either imposed upon themselves, or mean to impose upon you. ”