NOTE C C. 



ness, and sense ; virtues so essential amidst the bustle and distraction of legal 

 war, that their presence renders even honesty more powerful, while their absence 

 makes learning useless. To both bench and bar, in Scotland and everywhere 

 else, we strongly recommend the attentive and repeated study of Bacon s little 

 Essay (scarcely three pages) on Judicature. It is a discourse which ought not 

 merely to be suspended over the gate, but engraven on the heart, of every court 

 of justice.&quot; 



There are some observations, in his Essay upon Innovations, applicable to 

 the improvement of law as to all improvements. 



Want of Collegiate Education of Statesmen. Lord Bacon seems to have been 

 deeply impressed with the conviction, that the want of a collegiate education of 

 statesmen was the fundamental cause of the little progress that was made in 

 sound legislation. See ante, Note K. 



There is an observation of the same tendency by Lord Bolingbrook, who 

 says : &quot; I might instance, in other professions, the obligations men lie under of 

 applying themselves to certain parts of history, and 1 can hardly forbear doing 

 it in that of the law ; in its nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, 

 in its abuse and abasement the most sordid and the most pernicious. A lawyer 

 now is nothing more, I speak of ninety-nine in an hundred at least, to use some 

 of Tully s words, nisi leguleius quidam cautus, et acutus praeco actionum, cantor 

 formularum, auceps syllabarum. But there have been lawyers that were orators, 

 philosophers, historians : there have been Bacons and Clarendons, my lord. 

 There will be none such any more, till in some better age, true ambition or the 

 love of fame prevails over avarice ; and till men find leisure and encouragement 

 to prepare themselves for the exercise of this profession, by climbing up to the 

 vantage ground, so my lord Bacon calls it, of science ; instead of grovelling 

 all their lives below, in a mean but gainful application to all the little arts of 

 chicane. Till this happen, the profession of the law will scarce deserve to be 

 ranked among the learned professions : arid whenever it happens, one of the 

 vantage grounds to which men must climb, is metaphysical, and the other his 

 torical knowledge. They must pry into the secret recesses of the human heart, 

 and become well acquainted with the whole moral world, that they may discover 

 the abstract reason of all laws : and they must trace the laws of particular 

 states, especially of their own, from the first rough sketches to the more perfect 

 draughts ; from the first causes or occasions that produced them, through all the 

 effects, good and bad, that they produced.&quot; 



Increased importance in the present Time of a Collegiate Education of States 

 men. It may, perhaps, be deemed important to consider whether, in the present 

 times, when knowledge is making such rapid progress through all the middle 

 classes of society, these lamentations expressed by Lord Bacon and Milton are 

 not most peculiarly deserving consideration ; whether, when the middle classes 

 of society are rising, they can be restrained or distance be preserved, unless 

 there is a proportional elevation in the higher classes ? 



Opposition to Improvement by Politicians. Lord Bacon, when enumerating 

 the objections by politicians to the advancement of learning, says, &quot; It is 

 objected by politicians that learning doth mar and pervert men s dispositions for 

 matter of government and policy ; which the study of arts makes either too 

 curious by variety of reading ; or too peremptory by the strict rigour of rules ; 

 or too overweening, by reason of the greatness of examples ; or too incompatible 

 with the times, by reason of the dissimilitude of examples ; or at least it doth 

 divert and alienate men s minds from business and action, instilling into them a 

 love of leisure and privateness.&quot; He then enters minutely into an examination 

 of these objections. See vol. ii. page 16. 



Objections by Lawyers to Improvement of the Law. In his proposition touch 

 ing the compiling and amendment of the laws of England, he states five objec 

 tions which will be made by lawyers to improvement of the law. They are as 

 follows : 



1. Reform is needless. 



2. It is an innovation. 



3. More harm than good will be done. 



