NOTE C C. 



In his notice of universal justice, in the Advancement of Learning, he says : 

 &quot; For the more public part of government, which is laws, I think good to note 

 only one deficience ; which is, that all those that have written of laws have 

 written either as philosophers or lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the 

 philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and 

 their discourses are as the stars, which give little light, because they are so high. 

 For the lawyers, they write according to the states where they live; what is 

 received law, and not what ought to be law ; for the wisdom of a law-maker is 

 one, and of a lawyer is another. For there are in nature certain fountains of 

 justice, whence all civil laws are derived but as streams ; and, like as waters 

 do take tinctures and tastes from the soils through which they run, so do civil 

 laws vary according to the regions and governments where they are planted, 

 though they proceed from the same fountains. Again, the wisdom of a law 

 maker consisteth not only in a platform of justice, but in the application 

 thereof; taking into consideration by what means laws may be made certain, 

 and what are the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and incertainty of 

 law ; by what means law may be made apt and easy to be executed, and what 

 are the impediments and remedies in the execution of laws ; what influence laws 

 touching private right of meitrn and tuum have into the public state, and how 

 they may be made apt and agreeable ; how laws are to be penned and delivered, 

 whether in texts or in acts, brief or large, with preambles or without ; how they 

 are to be pruned and reformed from time to time, and what is the best means to 

 keep them from being too vast in volumes, or too full of multiplicity and cross 

 ness ; how they are to be expounded, when upon causes emergent, and judi 

 cially discussed ; and when upon responses and conferences touching general 

 points or questions ; how they are to be pressed, rigorously or tenderly ; how 

 they are to be mitigated by equity and good conscience, and whether discretion 

 and strict law are to be mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several 

 courts. Again, how the practice, profession, and erudition of law is to be cen 

 sured and governed ; and many other points touching the administration, and, 

 as I may term it, animation of laws. Upon which I insist the less, because I 

 propose, if God give me leave, having begun a work of this nature in aphorisms, 

 to propound it hereafter, noting it in the meantime for deficient.&quot; Vol. ii. p. 296. 



The reasons why men of learning are supposed not to be good reformers, may 

 be collected from the objections by politicians to the advancement of learning, 

 who think that the discourses of the philosopher are like the stars which give 

 little light, because they are so high. The politician says learning doth mar 

 and pervert men s dispositions for matter of government and policy, in making 

 them too curious and irresolute by variety of reading, or too peremptory or posi 

 tive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too immoderate and overweening by 

 reason of the greatness of examples, or too incompatible and differing from the 

 times, by reason of the dissimilitude of examples. Vol. ii. p. 14. 



Although Lord Bacon in these observations sanctions the common but erro 

 neous opinion that philosophers are Utopian ; that they are so ignorant of human 

 nature, as, by hasty generalization, to suppose that all men are immediately 

 capable of the same perfection, he does not so suppose in another part of the 

 Advancement of Learning, when speaking of the objections to learning from the 

 manners of learned men. See vol. ii. page 15. 



If Lord Bacon is right in supposing that, in his time lawyers were not the 

 best improvers, it may be well deserving consideration, whether the supposition 

 is not increased in the present times. Lord Bacon, when enumerating the 

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

 advancement of learning has a tendency to divert men of intellect from active 

 life.&quot; His words are, &quot; it doth divert men s travels from action and business, 

 and bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness ; and that it doth bring 

 into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every man is more ready to argue, 

 than to obey and execute.&quot; (a) If this is true, it will, perhaps, follow, that as 

 society advances in knowledge, the bar will not abound with men of the greatest 



() Vol. ii. p. 14. 



