Among the most difficult and the most important of the functions of the demonstrator is the business of arrangement.In this our Author has been thought,and not,I conceive,without justice,to excel;at least in comparison of any thing in that way that has hitherto appeared.`Tis to him we owe such an arrangement of the elements of Jurisprudence,as wants little,perhaps,of being the best that a technical nomenclature will admit of.A technical nomenclature,so long as it is admitted to mark out and denominate the principal heads,stands an invincible obstacle to every other than a technical arrange ment.For to denominate in general terms,what is it but to arrange?and to arrange under heads,what is it but to denominate upon a large scale?A technical arrangement,governed then in this manner,by a technical nomenclature,can never be otherwise than confused and unsatisfactory.The reason will be sufficiently apparent,when we understand what sort of an arrangement that must be which can be properly termed a natural one.
That arrangement of the materials of any science may,I take it,be termed a natural one,which takes such properties to characterize them by,as men in general are,by the common constitution of man's nature,disposed to attend to:such,in other words,as naturally,that is readily,engage,and firmly fix the attention of any one to whom they are pointed out.The materials,or elements here in question,are such actions as are the objects of what we call Laws or Institutions.
Now then,with respect to actions in general,there is no property in them that is calculated so readily to engage,and so firmly to fix the attention of an observer,as the tendency they may have to,or divergency (if one may so say)from,that which maybe styled the common end of all of them.The end I mean is Happiness:(19)and this tendency in any act is what we style its utility:as this divergency is that to which we give the name of mischievousness.With respect then to such actions in particular as are among the objects of the Law,to point out to a man the utility of them or the mischievousness,is the only way to make him see clearly that property of them which every man is in search of;the only way,in short,to give him satisfaction.