tion which is suggested is whether the obligations which it imposes are, in their very nature, of such a character that a conscientious man ought to undertake them? Does the profession of an advocate place any one who acknowledges the obligation to be true and just in all his dealings in the same position in which the profession of a hangman would place a man who believed capital punishment to be sinful, or the military profession would place a Quaker? The common sense and common experience of mankind answer that it does not; but why not? Why is it not wrong and unjust for a man to hold himself in readiness to say what is to be said in favor of any one who wishes to put the law in force against his neighbor? That every one who does so habitually must frequently take part in shocking the sentiment of justice, and in inflicting hardships, often of the most grievous kind, on individuals, follows from the observation already made on the nature of the law. If a lawyer succeeds in his profession, there can be little doubt that he will, in the course of his career, brand honest men with infamy, deprive lawful proprietors of their possessions, and possibly deprive innocent men, not only of character and property, but of liberty and even of life! Why is it right to incur, without compulsion and of free choice, responsibilities (to call them by no heavier name) so tremendous?
To answer such questions by appealing to the common sense and common practice of the world is, for practical purposes, as wise as for other than practical purposes it is unsatisfactory In order to give not merely a reason for disregarding such difficulties in practice, but an answer which removes them, it is necessary to go deep into the foundations of morality. The true answer is that for purposes of action, and especially for deciding on the morality of professions, we must assume that life is a good thing, or at least that, not being proved to be a bad thing, it is to be treated as good. From this it follows that all callings which are proved by satisfactory evidence to be essential to the transaction of the affairs of life must also be treated as good, and that such defects as are shown by experience to be inseparable from their working prove, not that they are bad, but that life itself is less beneficial than it would have been without them.
Thus the steps by which the profession of advocacy is justified are as follows: We must act on the principle that life is a good thing; therefore, that the administration of the law, which is essential to the transaction of the affairs of life, is good; therefore, that advocacy which is essential to the administration of the law, is good; therefore, that the shocks given by the practice of advocacy to the sentiment of justice, and the hardships inflicted by it on individuals, which are inseparable from advocacy, are drawbacks from its advantages, and not objections to its existence.
If this general theory of the morality of advocacy is accepted, many of the common objections to it fall to the ground at once. It puts an end to all questions about pleading on the wrong side; for to the advocate whose duty it is to administer law, the wrong side means the illegal side; and which side is legally right is a question which can be decided only by a competent court; and the mode of arriving at a decision which courts of justice have deliberately adopted in this country is that of hearing all that can be said on both sides of the cases brought before them. No doubt it may be, and often is, morally wrong to exercise a legal right. It may be unmerciful, vindictive, grossly selfish, and abominably cruel to do so, but this is the concern of the litigant, not of the advocate. A legal right is a power put by society at large into the hands of a private person to be used at his discretion. The officers of the law, in their various degrees, enable him to use it; but there is no moral difference at all between the advocate who conducts to a successful termination a prosecution instituted from the vilest motives, and the judge who passes sentence on the
