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sity, possibly, that renders the conventionalism of law so imperative. This man had been educated to the law, and he added that he found his professional knowledge of remarkable service.
“Law in the abstract is an inflexible and impartial prin- ciple, holding out one standard of moral right, and moral wrong to all the world. It has been devised by sages in the privacy of retirement, to protect society against the encroach- ments of selfishness and power, and to be an accessible instrument in the hands of all.” *
As an abstract principle, none is more sublime or more deserving the veneration of the world. While, by the pro- gress of knowledge and civilisation, the profession of medicine, having enlarged the circle of its utility, has become degene- rate in rank; that of law, has gamed an ascendancy, in the same proportion as it has lost sight of its early simplicity. That which was an instrument, has become a machine, ponderous, complicated, and unwieldy ; and in the same degree as it has ceased to be the tribunal of impartial justice between man and man, have the conventional laws of its professors, their learning and education, obtained an ascendancy in the world, before which the claims of medicine sink immeasur- ably. It would appear that the estimate of truth recedes in value, in proportion as the world advances in civilisation. No man had a juster perception of the moral evils, insepara- ble from the practice of an advocate, than the late excellent Dr. Arnold, who, in a letter to an old pupil on the choice of a profession, says :—“'To see any man delivered from the snare of the law as a profession, 1s with me a matter of
- Godwin.
