prr 
1888.] 227 [Brinton. 
truth and justice is not benefited by lying, even that quasi-lying which 
consists in the deliberate concealment of the truth. 
In business matters his judgment was sound and clear, and I and 
others of his friends benefited much by his advice. He laughed at those 
who suppose that abstract studies disqualify for dealings with men, and 
quoted Schopenhauer’s reply when some one expressed surprise at his 
business ability : ‘‘Do you think because I am a philosopher, that I am 
therefore a fool?”’ 
In his conversational powers, Law was a marked figure when he chose 
to give them play. This he rarely did in a large company. At such 
times he was apt to remain silent. But it was the reverse among those 
with whom he felt sure he would not be misunderstood. Then, indeed, 
the complaint might be that he would monopolize the conversation, His 
style was somewhat Johnsonian, crowding down less voluble speakers, 
but himself saying what the company generally wished to listen to. For 
some years he was a conspicuous member of a small association of men 
who desired to turn their minds to subjects higher than the affairs of daily 
life, an association which ambitiously styled itself ‘‘The Philosophers.’ 
Whatever else we learned in that assembly, we did not discover the elixir 
of life, for the association became extinct in a few years. 
He was not gifted ag a public speaker, and it was rare that he occupied 
the time of the various learned societies of which he was a member. He 
was, however, an appreciative listener and there were few topics of 
modern research in which he did not take an intelligent interest. He 
occupied a position as an officer in this and other societies, and was al- 
ways prompt and careful in the performance of any duties thus imposed 
upon him. : 
While an omnivorous reader, he had some topics of predilection. One 
_ of these was metaphysics. He had been educated in the usual doctrines 
of one of the Protestant denominations, but, as he told me on one occa- 
sion, had his intellectual slumber broken by reading Sir William Hamil- 
ton’s celebrated treatise on the ‘‘ Philosophy of the Unconditioned.’’ He 
learned later that Hamilton’s views are really little more than an expan- 
sion of Kant’s famous antinomies of the human understanding, and Law 
agreed with Lewes in the opinion that that wonderfully acute critique 
destroyed forever the foundation of all speculative philosophy. That 
Kant avoided this conclusion, he characterized as subservience to authority ; 
that Hamilton did not push his theory to this extent, he attributed to 
timidity ; and that Hegel pretended to have framed a new logic which 
avoided it, was a claim in his opinion proved false by its failure. 
By this ratiocination Mr. Law was led toward the Comtian doctrines, 
which he studied with much care. They persuaded him that that philoso- 
phy known as the Positive is alone the body of principles which are con- 
sistent with the demands of modern science and social-relations. In the 
many discussions [ had with him on this topic I could never. gain any 
concessions from him in favor of the idealistic or even the monistic doc. 
