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THE GREEN BAG
APICES JURIS BY CHARLES MORSE LORD BRAMWELL once exclaimed with fine indignation: "Law so dry? — / deny it!" Whereupon he undertook to refute the slander by referring to a standard law-book, consisting of four volumes, where of he said: "Three of them, to my mind, are most agreeable reading." It is inter esting to reflect, in passing, that the aridity of any volume which would offend Lord Bramwell must needs be prodigious; but the chief value of his observations lies in the fact that they implicitly disclose what he would have explicitly denied, namely, that the ratio of dry to attractive or stimu lating reading on the lawyer's shelves is fairly i to 3. Ay! beyond peradventure, there are many desert places in the domain of legal science where the mind yearns for the genial waters, the flowers and fruit of that broad human interest with which most other spheres of intellectual endeavor are abundantly en dowed. Hence to the lawyer of catholic tastes the maxim A pices juris non stint jura (which is but another writing of the more familiar Summum jus est summa injuria) appeals for exploitation with no ordinary charm. For, after all, is it anything more than a technical rendering of the universal counsel of philosophy to "avoid extremes? With such a theme, then, what delightful vistas of licensed divagation from la Itgalilt nous tue unfold themselves at the outset of our inquiry! Let us agree, then, that our maxim Apices juris non sunt jura (which, if it has any meaning at all, is equivalent to saying that subtleties of the law-principles carried to the extreme of refinement — are not the law) is but the lawyer's way of affirming the philosophy of the /xj?S«i> ayuv of the Greeks, the ne quid nimis of the Romans, and the juste milieu of the French. Perhaps there is no counsel of philosophy
that has so intimate a bearing upon conduct and judgment as the one in question, yet in respect of both it requires constant iteration "lest we forget!" When it is quoted for our admonition in respect of behavior how prone we are to echo the petulent cry of Cressida to Pandarus — "Why tell you me of moderation?" How often, too, is it lost sight of in forming our opinions of things. " Opinion," says that fantastical prose-lyrist and genial sage, Sir Thomas Browne, "rides upon the neck of reason; and men are happy, wise, or learned, according as that empress shall set them down in the register of regulation. However, weigh not thyself in the scales of thy own opinion, but let the judgment of the judicious be the standard of thy merit. Self-estimation is a flatterer too readily en titling us unto knowledge and abilities, which others solicitously labor after, and doubtfully think they attain." What is the trite exhortation of the ad vocate who would have the most potent, grave and reverend signiors of the Bench eschew niceties of interpretation, fine points, apices, in applying the law to his case? Surely this: "Avoid extremes, in' luds!" Media tutissimus ibis was the burden of Phccbus's advice to Phaethon in guiding the chariot of the sun — "Take this at least, this last advice, my son: "Keep a stiff rein, and move but gently on; "The coursers of themselves will run too fast, "Your art must be to moderate their haste." Unlike Phaethon, Mr. Pickwick was not externally warned to keep "the middle course," nor to exercise the art of moderating the pace of the extraordinary steed that "wouldn't shy if he wos to meet a vaggin
