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    cally framed , so that the principles being clearly defined , they may be capable of progression by rule , as human knowledge advances , fitting themselves to new circumstances , instead of resorting to the patchwork system at present in use—amending one defect by making another .

    Thirteenthly . — Law-workers . These people comprise the whole host of judges , ' chief and puisne ' , barristers , recorders , attorneys , solicitors , and clerks , in short all who follow the law as a trade by which a subsistence or a fortune is to be procured . Few pursuits have a greater tendency than these to demoralize human beings . They become familiarized with tricks , and lose sight of the beauty of truth . Justice they no way recognise , for it is not known in law , save occasionally under the anomalous term " Justice of Peace . " The Court of

    Chancery is indeed figured to be a court of equity , but it might with more propriety be called a court of Chance ; for decision upon the merits of a case there is none , neither is it a terminable process , for litigant parties may go on for ever by declaration and counter-declaration , affidavit and counter-affidavit , till they have no more means of paying these hirelings the fees

    of office , or till one side tire of the expense , or till both parties make a compromise—one , of half their right , and the other , of half their rogueries . A chancery suit has no defined term ; it may go on for centuries , or begin and end in a few months . A legal action may come to a close after considerable trouble ; for there is a term beyond which it cannot be protracted , and thus there is literally more justice in law than equity . Long habit has accustomed us to all the monstrous things done by

    lawyers ; but when the man of moral analysis examines them they seem inexplicable in a land where reason and virtue , and benevolence and religion , are common words in men ' s ' mouths . To think of a man moving in decent society , taking up any cause which may be offered to him , whether true or false , just or unjust , and putting his whole intellect into it for the purpose of gaining a victory , alike indifferent whether lie ruin an honest man , or unjustly upraise a scoundrel ! The attorney is the worst , for he concocts the case , and knows the whole particulars , but the barrister may hold himself in ignorance . The

    system of evidence in chancery by affidavit is most ludicrous . It is worth nothing . As there are no means of cross examining the witness , and proving him false , of course no one heeds it , unless it be of some especial well-known public man . There can be no doubt that the practice of law has a tendency to harden men ' s hearts , and make them believers in human vice and worthlessneps , as a condition from which human beings cannot escape . But the time is changing ; the light of truth is breaking forth , and , ere many years pass away , reason will rule in the statute book as in other places .

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    996 Social Classification *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1836, page 296, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2657/page/32/