farewell for ever to the dreams of science.1 Between these two classes-the class that had the will but not the means, and the class that had the means but not the will-little care has been expended on arranging and reducing to order so many and multifarious materials.

Whether law is a science. Hence the difficulty which presents itself of treating municipal law as a science at all, though such a name has been suggested with more and more energy in recent times. It is natural, indeed, that a dignity which is not denied to humbler subjects-to Shells and Insects, to Sound, and Colour, and Heatshould be claimed for the greatest and most potent body of knowledge which concerns the children of men-a knowledge which reaches, directly or indirectly, all stations

1 HALE said great men usually neglect the study of the English laws.-Hale's Hist. C.L. 140.

LORD MANSFIELD said that ignorance on subjects of law was extremely pardonable, since the knowledge of particular laws required a particular study of them; that the greatest genius without such study could no more become master of them, than of Japanese literature without understanding the language of the country.15 Parl. Hist. 900.

BURKE, writing a few years (1757) before Blackstone's Commentaries were published, says: "The law has been confined and drawn up into a narrow and inglorious study; an indigested method, and a species of reasoning the very refuse of the schools. Young men were sent away with an incurable, and, if we regard the manner of handling rather than the substance, a very well-founded, disgust."— Abr. Eng. Hist. ch. ix.

An acute citizen of the world lately made this comment on English law: "The faults as well as the excellences of the English character arise from that great dislike to generalise which has made us the practical and in many instances the prejudiced people that we are. Abroad, a knowledge of general or natural law, of the foundations on which all laws are or ought to be based, enters, as a matter of course, into a liberal education. In England lawyers themselves disregard this study as useless, or worse than useless. They look, and they look diligently, into English law, such as it is, established by custom, precedent, or Act of Parliament. They know all the nice points and proud formalities on which legal justice rests, or by which it may be eluded. The conflicting cases and opposing opinions which may be brought to bear on an unsound horse or a contested footpath, are deeply pondered over, carefully investigated. But the great edifice of general jurisprudence, though standing on his wayside, is usually passed by the legal traveller with averted eyes; the antiquary and the philosopher indeed may linger there, but the plodding man of business scorns to arrest his steps."-2 Bulwer's Hist. Char. 13.

and classes, and challenges the attention of governors and governed alike, searching the roots of social life far and wide. To watch and guide the changing details of the law and direct its next evolutions, is the business of politics, which is the most conspicuous occupation of practical minds. Politicians constantly emulate each other in balancing and forecasting the conditions of this progress in guiding the centre of motion-in rounding angularities, removing obstacles, levelling up or down, according to the motive forces in the ascendant. But when and why some laws were ever made at all, or, if made, when or why they should not be unmade-when it is best to stop and when to advance-when to speak and when to be silent-when to efface and when to restore or expand-these are secrets which have baffled the scrutiny of all the ages, and the wisest of men can show more easily how little they know of them than how to explain them. When a system of knowledge has no fixed range of action and an ever-shifting foreground-when its principles are little better than changing maxims of expediency-the mere saws and instances of the hourwhile its origin and progress are alike desultory, fortuitous, and uncertain-when no person can divine in what direction it is tending, and what are the legitimate limits of its domain-it is almost an abuse of language to call law a science, though it may be the most transcendent of all the arts.1 The universal influence it wields over the conduct of man in the business of the world entitles it in any case to the first importance. Finch said that the sparks of all the sciences in the world were raked up in its ashes. By

1 "Jurisprudence, according to the primary and established sense of the word, especially on the Continent, is the science of the Roman law, and is seldom applied to any other positive system, but least of all to the law of nature."-1 Hallam, Lit. H. 415.

SIR WILLIAM JONES says :-"The great system of jurisprudence, like that of the universe, consists of many subordinate systems, all of which are connected by nice links and beautiful dependencies, and each of which is reducible to a few plain elements. If law be a science, and really deserve so sublime a name, it must be grounded upon principle, and claim an exalted rank in the empire of reason; but if it be merely an unconnected series of decrees and ordinances, its use may remain, though its dignity may be lessened, and he will become the greatest lawyer who has the greatest natural or artificial memory." 21 Wynne, Eun. 70.

whatever name it may be called, the law is the great touchstone by which all human affairs are more or less tested, at least as between man and man. And if the present definition of science is too restricted, it may well be extended sufficiently wide to include the eldest born. and the natural protector of all the rest.1

Law capable of methodical treatment. But though law can scarcely be viewed as a science, at least in the sense in which that word has been usually applied, it is not the less a system of knowledge capable of being reduced to order, and pre-eminently calling for clear arrangement. Law has not only the whole field of practical life to influence, but it has an army of officers, ministers, and functionaries to work it out, not forgetting a vast array of magistrates and jurors evoked from the crowd to circulate and apportion its most practical lessons. Its influence is brought to bear on difficulties as they arise. The legal profession must be educated, and those of the public, who choose to learn what is so invaluable when learned in time, but what is so costly when learned too late, naturally expect to master without much difficulty what each is

1 It may be said that law is no more capable of being treated as a science than religion. Both require to deal too closely with the unreflecting, the ignorant, and the simple-hearted (to each and all of whom they must be accessible) to be capable of being reduced to a rigid system of rules, growing out of each other in logical sequence and development. If they could be comprehended only by a rigorous application of thought, like a science, they would shoot over the heads of those whom it is their greatest pride to protect and console.

BURKE finely observes: "And freedom is not a thing that lies hid in abstruse science. It is a blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation; and all the just reasoning that can be had upon it is of so coarse a texture, as perfectly to suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy and those who are to defend it. Far from any resemblance to those propositions in geometry and metaphysics which admit no medium, but must be true or false in all their latitude, social and civil freedom, like all other things in common life, are variously mixed and modified, enjoyed in very different degrees, and shaped into an infinite diversity of forms, according to the temper and circumstances of every community."-Burke, Shf. of Bristol.

"Government is a practical thing made for the happiness of mankind, and not to furnish out a spectacle of uniformity to gratify the schemes of visionary philosophers."—Ibid.

assumed already to know. What is to be learned can best be learned by reducing all that can be reduced to first principles, by arranging subjects in their natural and most intelligible order, and explaining what is pre-eminently addressed to the reason of all by adducing the best reasons that have been given by sages of all times, or if none have been or can be given, then by admitting this defect without yielding to an abject credulity. Law differs from other arts and systems of knowledge in anything but this, that it is most readily learned and mastered when the method and the arrangement are the best attainable. At the same time, none of the other learned professions treats with such unconquerable repugnance all attempts to generalise too much. To insist, as some teachers have done, on mapping out the whole field of human knowledge as a preliminary condition to mastering an empirical system, or even to tarry long in marshalling with nice precision its true place in the array of the arts and sciences, demands too great a reach of abstraction. Far-reaching reflection is doubly odious to those whose affairs are always urgent, who have only time to snatch an instant solution from the readiest judge sitting at the gate, who care little for formulas and methods, and everything for results. The details of practical law-and there is no other law zealously pursued-are already too great to allow time to ponder over the ultimate axioms and postulates, which scientific minds have by severe analysis found buried fathoms deep in its crude materials. A subject which requires the study of a lifetime, so that the longest liver is almost always the wisest lawyer, does not tolerate a lengthened preamble. Yet in spite of all this rooted aversion to first principles, no one can doubt that a large chapter of knowledge, professedly addressed to the reason of practical men, and which assumes to punish them for not knowing and not attending to it, and which moreover it is the pride of the leaders of society to be constantly engaged in amending and improving, must be susceptible of such a method, of such illustrations and explanations as will effectually fix the attention and memory. All other branches of human knowledge readily yield to this treatment. If law, apart from the mere technicalities inseparable from its daily manipulation and workmanship, cannot be made intelligible,

and arrange itself in the mind as the mirror, or at least the semblance of practical reason, it must be the fault of those who profess to explain it. This much is self-evident, that unless thoroughly understood and cordially accepted in all its cardinal doctrines, it cannot be wholly obeyed; and if it is not capable of being obeyed it must be a delusion and a snare, invented to harass and mock the natural craving for superior knowledge, which in civilised communities is a possession so highly prized.

Methods of explaining law.-In entering upon the threshold of the subject, there are two courses open to him who seeks to make the law most easily understood. One is to trace historically from small beginnings in the rudest ages the growth of those rules and canons which ultimately take shape and consistence among all advanced communities. The other is to take the law as found in its highest development in a civilised nation and resolve it into its ultimate elements or factors, bearing in mind that practical knowledge begins where philosophy ends. While some things are too intricate for ordinary observers, the theories of the wise must often be assumed as the startingpoint for those, who so soon become engrossed in the busy round of life.

The historical method of treating law.-Law of savages.Patriarchal origin of law.-The historical method, though seldom systematically followed up, is well calculated to arrest the attention and to yield abundant materials to interest and attract. During the last century or more travellers have added much to our knowledge of some rudimentary conditions of the human race. Many curious particulars as to the habits of tribes living far below the lowest grade of civilisation have been collected, and some insight obtained into their way of thinking, or rather of acting. Some tribes of men are thereby shown to differ scarcely in any respect from the beasts of the field, except in their semblance to the human form divine, and in the higher intelligence which is inseparable from such a form. All the typical features of the fully-developed law are conspicuous by their absence, or rather, by their anti-types. Marriage there is none, but entirely the reverse of it in all its details. Contracts are not needed; crime is neither known nor punished. Individuals have no rights and no