TRUTH, PATHOLOGY, AND PUBLIC. 147 



on Man," much to the disgust, as you recollect, of 

 Mr. Burchell, who thought the reputation of men 

 was " to be prized, not from their exemption from 

 fault, but the size of those virtues they were pos- 

 sessed of," a sentiment in which there is much truth ; 

 but the more you think over it the more you will 

 find that perfect honesty is a virtue of such size, a 

 gem so rare, that it is not to be found anywhere, but 

 is to be perpetually and earnestly sought after. 

 Professor Wendell Holmes, American anatomist, 

 and most pleasant of writers, tells us how comes 

 " Timidity, and after her Good-Nature, and last of 

 all Polite Behaviour, all insisting that truth must 

 roll, or nobody can do anything with it ; and so the 

 first with her coarse rasp, and the second with her 

 broad file, and the third with her silken sleeve, do 

 so round off and smooth and polish the snow-white 

 cubes of truth, that when they have become a little 

 dingy by use, it becomes hard to tell them from the 

 rolling spheres of falsehood." 



If we consider the three learned professions we 

 shall find that in all of them there are incentives to 

 truthfulness, and peculiar provocations to the re- 

 verse. The lawyer has often to practise special 

 pleading, which may possibly, in some instances, 

 weaken the moral antipathy to wrong ; but he has 

 to study from the commencement the abstract prin- 



