And, further, violations of duty, under
the prospect of their being summed up by future censors, would give
rise to more anxiety as to censure than when they are merely
represented, one after the other, and forgotten.
As regards an oath taken concerning a matter of belief (de
credulitate), it is evident that no such oath can be demanded by a
court. 1. For, first, it contains in itself a contradiction. Such
belief, as intermediate between opinion and knowledge, is a thing on
which one might venture to lay a wager but not to swear an oath. 2.
And, second, the judge who imposes an oath of belief, in order to
ascertain anything pertinent to his own purpose or even to the
common good, commits a great offence against the conscientiousness
of the party taking such an oath. This he does in regard both to the
levity of mind, which he thereby helps to engender, and to the
stings of conscience which a man must feel who to-day regards a
subject from a certain point of view, but who will very probably
to-morrow find it quite improbable from another point of view. Any
one, therefore, who is compelled to take such an oath, is subjected to
an injury.
Transition from the Mine and Thine in the State
of Nature to the Mine and Thine in the
Juridical State Generally.
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