pable, as if he had deluded them with verbal falsehoods. He has been acting a continued untruth. Perhaps such a man will say that he never denied that the greater part of his apparent property was settled on his wife. This may be true; but, when his neighbour came to him to lodge five or six hundred pounds in his hands; when he was conscious that this neighbour's confidence was founded upon the belief that his apparent property was really his own; when there was reason to apprehend, that if his neighbour had known his actual circumstances he would have hesitated in entrusting him with the money, then he does really and practically deceive his neighbour, and it is not a sufficient justification to say that he has uttered no untruth. The reader will observe that the case is very different from that of a person who conducts his business with borrowed money. This person must annually pay the income of the money to the lender. He does not expend it on his own establishment, and consequently does not hold out the same fallacious appearances. Some profligate spendthrifts take a house, buy elegant furniture, and keep a handsome equipage, in order by these appearances to deceive and defraud traders. No man doubts whether these persons act criminally. How then can he be innocent who knowingly practises a deception similar in kind though varying in degree?

HOUSES OF INFAMY.-If it were not that a want of virtue is so common amongst men, we should wonder at the coolness with which some persons of decent reputation are content to let their houses to persons of abandoned character, and to put periodically into their pockets, the profits of infamy. Sophisms may easily be invented to palliate the conduct; but nothing can make it right. Such a landlord knows perfectly to what purpose his house will be devoted, and knows that he shall receive the wages, not perhaps of his own iniquity, but still the wages of iniquity. He is almost a partaker with them in their sins. If I were to sell a man arsenic or a pistol, knowing that the buyer wanted it to commit murder, should I not be a bad man? If I let a man a house, knowing that the renter wants it for purposes of wickedness, am I an innocent man? Not that it is to be affirmed that no one may receive ill-gotten money. A grocer may sell a pound of sugar to a woman though he knows she is upon the town. But, if we cannot specify the point at which a lawful degree of participation terminates, we can determine, respecting some degrees of participation, that they are unlawful. To the majority of such offenders against the Moral Law, these arguments may be urged in vain; there are some of whom we may indulge greater hope. Respectable public brewers are in the habit of purchasing beer houses in order that they may supply the publicans with their porter. Some of these houses are notoriously the resort of the most abandoned of mankind; the daily scenes of riot, and drunkenness, and of the most filthy debauchery. Yet these houses are purchased by brewers—perhaps there is a competition amongst them for the premises; they put in a tenant of their own, supply him with beer, and regularly receive the profits of this excess of wickedness. Is there no such obligation as that of abstaining even from the appearance of evil? Is there no such thing as guilt without a personal participation in it? All pleas such as that, if one man did not supply such a house another would, are vain subterfuges. Upon such reasoning, you might rob a traveller on the road, if you knew that at the next turning a footpad was waiting to plunder him if you did not. Selling such houses to be occupied as before, would be like selling slaves because you thought it criminal to keep

them in bondage. The obligation to discountenance wickedness rests upon him who possesses the power. "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." To retain our virtue may in such cases cost us something; but he who values virtue at its worth will not think that he retains it at a dear rate.

LITERARY PROPERTY. Upon similar grounds there are some of the profits of the press which a good man cannot accept. There are some periodical works and some newspapers, from which, if he were offered an annual income, he would feel himself bound to reject it. Suppose there is a newspaper which is lucrative because it gratifies a vicious taste for slander or indecency-or suppose there is a magazine of which the profits result from the attraction of irreligious or licentious articles, I would not put into my pocket, every quarter of a year, the money which was gained by vitiating mankind. In all such cases, there is one sort of obligation which applies with great force, the obligation not to discourage rectitude by our example. Upon this ground, a man of virtue would hesitate even to contribute an article to such a publication, lest they who knew he was a contributor, should think they had his example to justify improprieties of their own.

REWARDS. A person loses his pocket-book containing fifty pounds, and offers ten pounds to the finder if he will restore it. The finder ought not to demand the reward. It implies surely some imputation upon a man's integrity, when he accepts payment for being honest. For, for what else is he paid? If he retains the property he is manifestly fraudulent. To be paid for giving it up, is to be paid for not committing fraud. The loser offers the reward in order to overpower the temptation to dishonesty. To accept the reward is therefore tacitly to acknowledge that you would have been dishonest if it had not been offered. This certainly is not maintaining an integrity that is "above suspicion." It will be said that the reward is offered voluntarily. This, in proper language, is not true. Two evils are presented to the loser, of which he is compelled to choose one. If men were honest, he would not offer the reward: he would make it known that he had lost his pocket-book, and the finder, if a finder there were, would restore it. The offered ten pounds is a tax which is imposed upon him by the want of uprightness in mankind, and he who demands the money actively promotes the imposition. The very word reward carries with it its own reprobation. As a reward, the man of integrity would receive nothing. If the loser requested it, he might if he needed it accept a donation; but he would let it be understood that he accepted a present not that he received a debt.

Perhaps examples enough or more than enough, have been accumulated to illustrate this class of obligations. Many appeared needful, because it is a class which is deplorably neglected in practice. So strong is the temptation to think that we may rightfully possess whatever the law assigns to us—so insinuating is the notion, upon subjects of property, that whatever the law does not punish we may rightfully do, that there is little danger of supplying too many motives to habitual discrimination of our duties and to habitual purity of conduct. Let the reader especially remember, that the examples which are offered are not all of them selected on account of their individual importance, but rather as illustrations of the general principle. A man may meet with a hundred circumstances in life to which none of these examples are relevant, but I think he will not have much difficulty in estimating the principles

which they illustrate. And this induces the observation, that although several of these examples are taken from British law or British customs, they do not, on that account, lose their applicability where these laws and customs do not obtain. If this book should ever be read in a foreign land, or if it should be read in this land when public institutions or the tenor of men's conduct shall be changed, the principles of its morality will, nevertheless, be applicable to the affairs of life.

CHAPTER III.

INEQUALITY OF PROPERTY.

Accumulation of Wealth: its proper limits-Provision for children: "Keeping up the family."

THAT many and great evils result from that inequality of property which exists in civilized countries, is indicated by the many propositions which have been made to diminish or destroy it. We want not indeed such evidence; for it is sufficiently manifest to every man who will look round upon his neighbours. We join not with those who declaim against all inequality of property: the real evil is not that it is unequal, but that it is greatly unequal; not that one man is richer than another, but that one man is so rich as to be luxurious, or imperious, or profligate, and that another is so poor as to be abject and depraved, as well as to be destitute of the proper comforts of life.

There are two means by which the pernicious inequality of property may be diminished; by political institutions, and by the exertions of private men. Our present business is with the latter.

To a person who possesses and expends more than he needs, there are two reasonable inducements to diminish its amount-first, to benefit others, and next, to benefit his family and himself. The claims of benevolence towards others are often and earnestly urged upon the public, and for that reason they will not be repeated here. Not that there is no occasion to repeat the lesson, for it is very inadequately learnt; but that it is of more consequence to exhibit obligations which are less frequently enforced. To insist upon diminishing the amount of a man's property for the sake of his family and himself, may present to some men new ideas, and to some men the doctrine may be paradoxical.

Large possessions are in a great majority of instances injurious to the possessor-that is to say, those who hold them are generally less excellent, both as citizens and as men, than those who do not. The truth appears to be established by the concurrent judgment of mankind. Lord Bacon says

Certainly great riches have sold more men than they have bought out. As baggage is to an army, so are riches to virtue.-It hindereth the march, yea and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory."-" It is to be feared that the general tendency of rank, and especially of riches, is to withdraw the heart from spiritual exercises."*"A much looser system of morals commonly prevails in the higher than in the middling and lower orders of society."t "The middle rank contains most virtue and abilities."

• More's Moral Sketches, 3rd Edit. p. 446. + Wilberforce: Pract. View.

Wollestoncroft: Rights of Women, c. 4.

"Wealth heap'd on wealth nor truth nor safety buys, The dangers gather as the treasures rise." "There is no greater calamity than that of leaving children an affluent independence.-The worst examples in the Society of Friends are generally amongst the children of the rich."†

It was an observation of Voltaire's, that the English people were, like their butts of beer, froth at top, dregs at bottom-in the middle, excellent. The most rational, the wisest, the best portion of mankind, belong to that class who possess "neither poverty nor riches." Let the reader look around him. Let him observe who are the persons that contribute most to the moral and physical amelioration of mankind; who they are that practically and personally support our unnumbered institutions of benevolence; who they are that exhibit the worthiest examples of intellectual exertion; who they are to whom he would himself apply if he needed to avail himself of a manly and discriminating judgment. That they are the poor is not to be expected: we appeal to himself whether they are the rich. Who then would make his son a rich man? Who would remove his child out of that station in society which is thus peculiarly favourable to intellectual and moral excellence?

If a man knows that wealth will in all probability be injurious to himself and to his children, injurious too in the most important points, the religious and moral character, it is manifestly a point of the soundest wisdom and the truest kindness to decline to accumulate it. Upon this subject, it is admirable to observe with what exactness the precepts of Christianity are adapted to that conduct which the experience of life recommends. "The care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word:"-" choked with cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection:"

"How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" "They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition." Not that riches necessarily lead to these consequences, but that such is their tendency; a tendency so uniform and powerful that it is to be feared these are their very frequent results. Now this language of the Christian Scriptures does not contain merely statements of fact— it imposes duties; and whatever may be the precise mode of regarding those duties, one point is perfectly clear;-that he who sets no other limit to his possessions or accumulations than inability or indisposition to obtain more, does not conform to the will of God. Assuredly, if any specified thing is declared by Christianity to be highly likely to obstruct our advancement in goodness, and to endanger our final felicity, against that thing, whatever it be, it is imperative upon us to guard with wakeful solicitude.

And therefore, without affirming that no circum. stance can justify a great accumulation of property, it may safely be concluded, that far the greater number of those who do accumulate it, do wrong: nor do I see any reason to be deterred from ranking the distribution of a portion of great wealth, or a refusal to accumulate it, amongst the imperative duties which are imposed by the Moral Law. In truth, a man may almost discover whether such conduct is obligatory, by referring to the motives which induce him to acquire great property or to retain it. The motives are generally impure; the desire of splendour, or the ambition of eminence, or

⚫ Johnson: Vanity of Human Wishes.

+ Clarkson: Portraiture.

the love of personal indulgence. Are these motives fit to be brought into competition with the probable welfare, the virtue, the usefulness, and the happiness of his family and himself? Yet such is the competition, and to such unworthy objects, duty, and reason, and affection are sacrificed.

It will be said, a man should provide for his family; and make them, if he can, independent. That he should provide for his family is true; that he should make them independent, at any rate that he should give them an affluent independence, forms no part of his duty, and is frequently a violation of it. As it respects almost all men, he will best approve himself a wise and kind parent, who leaves to his sons so much only as may enable them, by moderate engagements, to enjoy the conveniences and comforts of life; and to his daughters a sufficiency to possess similar comforts, but not a sufficiency to shine amongst the great, or to mingle with the votaries of expensive dissipation. If any father prefers other objects to the welfare and happiness of his children-if wisdom and kindness towards them are with him subordinate considerations, it is not probable that he will listen to reasonings like these. But where is the parent who dares to acknowledge this preference to his own mind?

It were idle to affect to specify any amount of property which a person ought not to exceed. The circumstances of one man may make it reasonable that he should acquire or retain much more than another who has fewer claims. Yet somewhat of a general rule may be suggested. He who is accumulating should consider why he desires more. If it really is, that he believes an addition will increase the welfare and usefulness and virtue of his family, it is probable that further accumulation may be right. If no such belief is sincerely entertained, it is more than probable that it is wrong. He who already possesses affluence should consider its actual existing effects.-If he employs a competent portion of it in increasing the happiness of others, if it does not produce any injurious effect upon his own mind, if it does not diminish or impair the virtues of his children, if they are grateful for their privileges rather than vain of their superiority, if they second his own endeavours to diffuse happiness around them, he may remain as he is. If such effects are not produced, but instead of them others of an opposite tendency, he certainly has too much.-Upon this serious subject let the Christian parent be serious. If, as is proved by the experience of every day, great property usually inflicts great injuries upon those who possess it, what motive can induce a good man to lay it up for his children? What motive will be his justification, if it tempts them from virtue?

When children are similarly situated with respect to their probable wants, there seems no reason for preferring the elder to the younger, or sons to daughters. Since the proper object of a parent in making a division of his property, is the comfort and welfare of his children-if this object is likely to be better secured by an equal than by any other division, an equal division ought to be made. It is

a common, though not a very reasonable opinion, that a son needs a larger portion than a daughter. To be sure, if he is to live in greater affluence than she, he does. But why should he? There appears no motive in reason, and certainly there is none in affection, for diminishing one child's comforts to increase another's. A son too has greater opportunities of gain. A woman almost never grows rich except by legacies or marriage; so that, if her father do not provide for her, it is probable that she will not be provided for at all. As to marriage, the

opportunity is frequently not offered to a woman; and a father, if he can, should so provide for his daughter as to enable her, in single life, to live in a state of comfort not greatly inferior to her brother's. The remark that the custom of preferring sons is general, and therefore that when a couple marry the inequality is adjusted, applies only to the case of those who do marry. The number of women who do not is great; and a parent cannot foresee his daughter's lot. Besides, since marriage is (and is reasonably) a great object to a woman, and is desirable both for women and for men, there appears a propriety in increasing the probability of marriage by giving to women such property as shall constitute an additional inducement to marriage in the men. I shall hardly be suspected of recommending persons to " marry for money." My meaning is this: A young man possesses five hundred a-year, and lives on a corresponding scale. He is attached to a woman who has but one hundred a-year. This young man sees that if he marries, he must reduce his scale of living; and the consideration operates (I do not say that it ought to operate) to deter him from marriage. But if the young man possessed three hundred a-year and lived accordingly, and if the object of his attachment possessed three hundred a-year also, he would not be prevented from marrying her by the fear of being obliged to diminish his system of expenditure. Just complaints are made of those half-concealed blandishments by which some women who need "a settlement" endeavour to procure it by marriage. Those blandishments would become more tempered with propriety, if one great motive was taken away by the possession of a competence of their own.

An equal division of a father's property will be said to be incompatible with the system of primogeniture, and almost incompatible with hereditary rank. These are not subjects for the present Essay. Whatever the reader may think of the practical value of these institutions, it is manifest that far the greater number of those who have property to bequeath, need not concern themselves with either: they may, in their own practice, contribute to diminish the general and the particular evils of unequal property. With respect to their own families, the result can hardly fail to be good. It is probable that as men advance in intellectual, and especially in moral excellence, the desire of "keeping up the family" will become less and less an object of solicitude. That desire is not, in its ordinary character, recommended by any considerations which are obviously deducible from virtue or from reason. It is an affair of vanity; and vanity, like other weaknesses and evils, may be expected to diminish as sound habits of judgment prevail in the world.

Perhaps it is remarkable, that the obligation not to accumulate great property for ourselves or our children, is so little enforced by the writers on morality. None will dispute that such accumulation is both unwise and unkind. Every one acknowledges too that the general evils of the existing inequality of property are enormously great: yet how few insist upon those means by which, more than by any other private means, these evils may be diminished! If all men declined to retain, or refrained from acquiring, more than is likely to be beneficial to their families and themselves, the pernicious inequality of property would quickly be diminished or destroyed. There is a motive upon the individual to do this, which some public reformations do not offer. He who contributes almost nothing to diminish the general mischiefs of extreme poverty and extreme wealth, may yet do so much benefit to his own connexions as shall greatly overpay him for the sacri

fice of vanity or inclination. Perhaps it may be said that there is a claim too of justice. The wealth of a nation is a sort of common stock, of which the accumulations of one man are usually made at the expense of others. A man who has acquired a reasonable sufficiency, and who nevertheless retains his business to acquire more than a sufficiency, practises a sort of injustice towards another who needs his means of gain. There are always many who cannot enjoy the comforts of life, because others are improperly occupying the means by which those comforts are to be obtained. Is it the part of a Christian to do this?-even abating the consideration that he is injuring himself by withholding comforts from another.

In the third Essay,* some enquiry will be attempted, as to whether Justice may not often be administered between contending parties, or to public offenders, by some species of arbitration rather than by law ;whether a gradual substitution of Equity for fixed rules of decision, is not congruous alike with philosophy and morals.-The present chapter, however, and that which succeeds it, proceed upon the supposition that the administration of Justice continues in its present state.

The question for an individual, when he has some cause of dispute with another respecting property or rights is, By what means ought I to endeavour to adjust it? Three modes of adjustment may be supposed to be offered: Private arrangement with the other party--Reference to impartial men-and Law. Private adjustment is the best mode; arbitration is good; law is good only when it is the sole alterna

tive.

The litigiousness of some of the early Christians at Corinth gave occasion to the energetic expostulation, "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? If then, ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it so that there is not a wise man among you? No, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" Upon this, one observation is especially to be remembered: that a great part of its pointedness of reprehension is directed, not so much to litigation, as to litigation before Pagans. "Brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers." The impropriety of exposing the disagreements of Christians in Pagan courts, was manifest and great. They who had rejected the dominant religion, for a religion of which one peculiar characteristic was good

will and unanimity, were especially called upon to exhibit in their conduct an illustration of its purer principles. Few things, not grossly vicious, would bring upon Christians and upon Christianity itself so much reproach as a litigiousness which could not or would not find arbitration amongst themselves. The advice of the apostle appears to have been acted upon: "The primitive church, which was always zealous to reconcile the brethren and to procure pardon for the offender from the person offended, did ordain, according to the Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, that the saints or Christians should not maintain a process of law one against the other at the bar or tribunals of infidels."* The Christian of the present day is differently circumstanced, because, though he appeals to the law, he does not appeal to Pagan judges; and therefore so much of the apostle's censure as was occasioned by the Paganism of the courts, does not apply to us.

To this indeed there is an exception founded upon analogy. If at the commencement of the Refor mation, two of the reformers had carried a dispute respecting property before Romish courts, they would have come under some portion of that reprobation which was addressed to the Corinthians. Certainly, when persons profess such a love for religious purity and excellence that they publicly withdraw from the general religion of a people, there ought to be so much purity and excellence amongst them, that it would be needless to have recourse to those from whom they had separated, to adjust their disputes. The catholic of those days might reasonably have turned upon such reformers and said, " Is it so that there is not a wise man among you, no not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?" And if indeed, no such wise man was to be found, it might safely be concluded that their reformation was an empty name.-For the same reasons, those who, in the present times, think it right to withdraw from other protestant churches in order to maintain sounder doctrines or purer practice, cast reproach upon their own community if they cannot settle their disputes amongst themselves. Pretensions to soundness and purity are of little avail if they do not enable those who make them to repose in one another such confidence as this. Were I a Wesleyan or a Baptist, I should think it discreditable to go to law with one of my own brotherhood.

But, though the apostle's prohibition of going to law appears to have been founded upon the paganism of the courts, his language evidently conveys disap. probation, generally, of appeals to the law. He insists upon the propriety of adjusting disputes by arbitration. Christians, he says, ought not to be unworthy to judge the smallest matters; and so emphatically does he insist upon the truth, that their religion ought to capacitate them to act as arbitrators, that he intimates that even a small advance in Christian excellence is sufficient for such a purpose as this: Set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church." It will perhaps be acknowledged that when Christianity shall possess its proper influence over us, there will be little reason to recur, for adjustment of our disagreements, to fixed rules of law. And though this influence is so far short of universal prevalence, who cannot find amongst those to whom he may have access, some who are capable of deciding rightly and justly? The state of that christian country must indeed be bad, if it contains not, even in every little district, one that is able to judge between his brethren.

Nevertheless, there are cases in which the christian may properly appeal to the law. He may have

an antagonist who can in no other manner be induced to be just or to act aright. Under some such circumstances Paul himself pursued a similar course: "I appeal unto Cæsar."-" Is it lawful for you to Scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?" And when he had been illegally taken into custody he availed himself of his legal privileges, and made the magistrates come themselves and fetch him out." There are, besides, in the present condition of jurisprudence, some cases in which the rule of justice depends upon the rule of law-so that a thing is just or not just according as the law determines. In such cases neither party, however well disposed, may be able distinctly to tell what justices requires until the law informs them. Even then, however, there are better means of procedure than by prosecuting suits. The parties may obtain "Opinions.'

Beside these considerations there are others which powerfully recommend arbitration in preference to law. The evils of litigation, from which arbitration is in a great degree exempt, are great.

Expense is an important item. A reasonable man desires of course to obtain justice as inexpensively as he can; and the great cost of obtaining it in courts of law, is a powerful reason for preferring

arbitration.

Legal Injustice. He who desires that justice should be dispensed between him and another, should sufficiently bear in mind how much injustice is inflicted by the law. We have seen in some of the preceding chapters that law is often very wide of equity; and he who desires to secure himself from an inequitable decision, possesses a powerful motive to prefer arbitration. The technicalities of the law and the artifices of lawyers are almost innumerable. Sometimes, when a party thinks he is on the eve of obtaining a just verdict, he is suddenly disappointed and his cause is lost by some technical defect-the omission of a word or the mis-spelling of a name; matters which in no degree affect the validity of his claims. If the only advantage which arbitration offers to disagreeing parties, was exemption from these deplorable evils, it would be a substantial and sufficient argument in its favour. There is no reason to doubt, that justice would generally be administered by a reference to two or three upright and disinterested men. When facts are laid before sach persons, they are seldom at a loss to decide what justice requires. Its principles are not so critical or remote as usually to require much labour of research to discover what they dictate. It might be concluded, therefore, even if experience did not confirm it, that an arbitration, if it did not decide absolutely aright, would at least come to as just a decision as can be attained by human means.

But ex

perience does confirm the conclusion. It is known that the Society of Friends never permits its members to carry disagreements with one another before courts of law. All, if they continue in the society, must submit to arbitration. And what is the consequence? They find, practically, that arbitration is the best mode; that justice is in fact administered by it, administered more satisfactorily and with fewer exceptions than in legal courts. No one pretends to dispute this. Indeed if it were disputable, it may be presumed that this community would abandon the practice. They adhere to it because it is the most Christian practice and the best.

Inquietude. The expense, the injustice, the delays and vexations which are attendant upon lawsuits, bring altogether a degree of inquietude upon the mind which greatly deducts from the enjoyment of life, and from the capacity to attend with composure to other and perhaps more important conIf to this we add the heart-burnings and

cerns.

Complexity of law-Professional untruths-Defences of legal practice-Effects of legal practice: Seduction: Theft: Peculation-Pleading-The duties of the profession-Effects of legal practice on the profession, and on the public.

Ir it should be asked why, in a book of general morality, the writer selects for observation the practice of a particular profession, the answer is simply this, that the practice of this particular professior. peculiarly needs it. It peculiarly needs to be brought into juxtaposition with sound principles of morality. Besides this, an honest comparison of the practice with the principles will afford useful illustration of the requisitions of virtue.

That public opinion pronounces that there is, in the ordinary character of legal practice, much that is not reconcilable with rectitude, can need no proof. The public opinion could scarcely become general unless it were founded upon truth, and that it is general is evinced by the language of all ranks of men; from that of him who writes a treatise of morality, to that of him who familiarly uses a censorious proverb. It may reasonably be concluded that when the professional conduct of a particular set of men is characterized peculiarly with sacrifices of rectitude, there must be some general and peculiar cause. There appears nothing in the profession, as such, to produce this effect-nothing in taking a part in the administration of justice which necessarily leads men away from the regard to justice. How then are we to account for the fact as it exists, or where shall we primarily lay the censure? Is it the fault of the men or of the institutions; of the lawyers or of the law? Doubtless the original fault is in the law.

This fault, as it respects our own country, and I suppose every other, is of two kinds; one is necessary, and one accidental. First: Wherever fixed rules of deciding controversies between man and man, or fixed rules of administering punishment to public offenders are established there it is inevitable that equity will sometimes be sacrificed to rules. These rules are laws, that is, they must be uniformly, and for the most part literally, applied; and this literal application, (as we have already had manifold occasion to show,) is sometimes productive of practical injustice. Since, then, the legal profession employ themselves in enforcing this literal application-since they habitually exert themselves to do this with little regard to the equity of the result, they cannot fail to deserve and to obtain the character of a profession that sacrifices rectitude. I know not that this is evitable so long as numerous and fixed rules are adopted in the administration of justice.

The second cause of the evil, as it results from the law itself, is in its extreme complication-in the needless multiplicity of its forms, in the inextricable intricacy of its whole structure. This, which is pro

D