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latter may be repealed, while the former ought to be erazed. However the worthy may avoid following such precedents, they will ever be adopted by the unworthy, who will enlarge and refine upon them, by bringing every possible case within their meaning: For evil-minded Judges, my Lord, are as eager to fix precedents that shall sap the foundation of our liberty, as good ones are in correcting the erroneous practice of our Courts.
Early prejudices and arbitrary principles instilled into a youthful bosom, are very difficult to be eradicated. It is hardly in the power of education, travel, society, or even time, to expel that which is engendered in our very natures. Especially if that propensity flatters our pride, feeds our ambition, and raises our imagination to account even our blood as superior, and of a different quality from that of the common mass of mankind.
Those ideas may be laudable in a soldier, but are odious in a Judge. He cannot entertain too humble an opinion of his origin, to do justice to all, and undervalue none but
those
