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CHAPTER XI.: THIRD GENERAL TITLE OF THE CIVIL CODE. Of Times. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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CHAPTER XI.

THIRD GENERAL TITLE OF THE CIVIL CODE.

Of Times.

To the fixation of place, it is necessary to add the fixation of times. In the last resort, it is only by the combined consideration of place and time—of the place in which he is found at a certain time—that one individual can be distinguished from every other.

Under this general title, the law ought to expound what it intends should be understood by the names which express the different portions of time—second, minute, hour, day, month, year, &c.

The months, after a certain number of which, reckoned from the death or absence of the presumptive father, a child shall not be deemed to be legitimate,—are they those of the sun or the moon, or the fantastical months of the calendar, which are neither the one nor the other? The particular cases would be found under the particular titles of Bastards, or of Fathers. But it would be requisite that the explanation of the times should be found under a general title, to which reference might be made when necessary.

In cases in which months might cause doubts, it would be better to employ days.

Feasts—Fasts—Lent—inasmuch as these things were the subjects of legislation, would find a place under this title. Thus the calendar was inserted in an act of Parliament, when the new style was adopted in England.

These two titles, designed to establish fixed points to which individuals might be moored in the two oceans of time and space, ought to be found in every code, and will most probably be found in none. Hence the multitude of disputes, of uncertainties, of opportunities for chicane arising from the fluctuations of usage among the different systems which different customs have introduced.

Uniformity in the measurement of time, as well as in the measures of weight and quantity, is still the wish of philosophy, but it has not yet been accomplished.