igOI-2 TRANSACTIONS. 67 



Now what is the secret of this dislike of the law on the 

 part of the hard-headed men of the world whose words we have 

 just quoted? Surely not the belief that the law is an evil 

 thing that it behooves society to purge itself of — for, in the 

 present stage of human progress, law is at once the guardian 

 and bulwark of society. No clear-headed thinker will deny 

 that. ^'■Force^^'' says Joubert, '•^ Force till Right is ready P^ Law is 

 civilized Force, and Right won't be ready until the millennium. 

 Nor can it be that our critics espouse the view that the whole 

 legal profession is an aggregation of knaves ; that would be 

 a reflection upon their good sense and judgment. Nor yet 

 can we trace their attitude to the underlying motive of Jack 

 Cade's minion when he cried : " The first thing we do, let's 

 kill all the lawyers ! " No, the secret of their hostility lies 

 in that instinctive resistance to the restraints Positive Law, 

 of necessity, imposes upon natural liberty, which you 

 will find in the minds of the best of men if you probe them 

 deeply enough. One of the satirical poets of America has 

 said : 



No man e'er felt the halter draw 

 With good opinion of the law ; 



but as a matter of fact this sentiment is not confined to the 

 unhappy rogue who is called upon to suffer for his crimes. Is 

 it not often the case that the same man who to-day lifts up his 

 voice in Parliament in glowing eulogy of British political 

 institutions will to-morrow, under the smart and perturbation 

 which -are his who has failed in some civil action at law, 

 denounce the judges as venal, the lawyers as thieves, and the 

 law itself as the very nidus of iniquity ? To pay Customs 

 duties with cheerfulness is surely an acquired moral taste ; 

 and to stay one's hand with a fishing-pole in it when the trout 

 are jumping in a preserved stream, is not exactly a survival 

 of the habits of primitive man. 



And so we are brought face to face with the law every 

 moment of our lives, and cannot escape the touch of its 

 strong hand try as we will. It probes the very pith and 

 marrow of society. " The progress and development of 



