Legal And Political Hermeneutics PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839 edition. Excerpt: ... Ambiguity of Human Speech.--Processes of Formation of Words.--Necessity of always leaving much to be understood by Interpretation.--Not to be avoided by Specification and Amplification.--Causes of Ambiguity in the Language, the Utterer, the Change of Circumstances.--Desire of avoiding different Interpretation.--Prohibition of Commentaries.--Napoleon's View.--Interpretation cannot be dispensed with.--Civil Liberty demands Independence of the Judiciary, of the Law.--Correct Interpretation more necessary in free Countries than in States not free. I. If Interpretation is the discovery of the true sense of words, it is presumed that this sense is not obvious; for, that which must be discovered or found out, must needs be hidden in some way or other before it is discovered. Yet words signify ideas or things, and how does it happen, that, if used for the very purpose of conveying our ideas, they can leave any doubt? The ambiguity of human speech is owing to a vast variety of causes, at times intentional, at others unintentional, avoidable or unavoidable, owing to the ulterer, to the words or the situation of things and their changes. The most common or most important causes will be given here, and it is necessary to weigh them well, since many errors in the highest spheres of politics and law have arisen from an insufficient consideration of these causes, and a consequent belief, which still manifests itself not unfrequently in many, that ambiguity can be entirely avoided, or that certain instruments of the gravest import do not contain any, and, consequently do not require interpretation. ii. In no case are words, originally, produced in a finished state by the reflecting intellect, and consciously affixed to objects, presenting themselves to...