THE NATUKE OF THE PROBLEM. 7 



judgment less in accordance with their sincere con- 

 viction than with wishes expressed in higher quarters. 

 We readily admit that the majority of judges and 

 counsel decide conscientiously, and err simply from 

 human frailty. Most of their errors, indeed, are due 

 to defective preparation. It is popularly supposed 

 that these are just the men of highest education, and 

 that on that very account they have the preference in 

 nominations to different offices. However, this famed 

 " legal education " is for the most part rather of a 

 formal and technical character. They have but a 

 superficial acquaintance with that chief and peculiar 

 object of their activity, the human organism, and its 

 most important function, the mind. That is evident 

 from the curious views as to the liberty of the will, 

 responsibility, etc., which we encounter daily. I once 

 told an eminent jurist that the tiny spherical ovum 

 from which every man is developed is as truly endowed 

 with life as the embryo of two, or seven, or even nine 

 months. He laughed incredulously. Most of our 

 students of jurisprudence have no acquaintance with 

 anthropology, psychology, and the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion — the very first requisites for a correct estimate of 

 human nature. They have " no time " for it ; their 

 time is already too largely bespoken for lighter 

 pursuits and purposes. Their scanty hours of study 

 are required for the purpose of learning some 

 hundreds of paragraphs of law books, a knowledge 

 of which is supposed to qualify the jurist for any 

 position whatever in our modern civilised community. 

 We shall touch but lightly on the unfortunate pro- 

 vince of politics, for the unsatisfactory condition of the 

 modern political world is only too familiar. In a great 

 measure its evils are due to the fact that most of our 



