Page:Justice and Jurisprudence - 1889.pdf/103

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Justice and Jurisprudence.

The advocate's mission is that of an educator; and the education which is demanded is frequently to be effected only by a constant ringing of the changes, by "line upon line, precept upon precept: here a little, and there a little." It often happens, that what is exceedingly prolix to the court tends greatly to clarify the understanding of the jury, which may receive impressions from arguments (through the emotional nature of its members), which the court, as a trained scientist following the lead only of an artificial principle, might arbitrarily reject. If there is discovered in the arguments a frequent reiteration of the same line of thought, if through the various forms of language employed a frequent return to the same points is traceable, if the same issues are presented from various stand-points, it may be fairly urged in justification that human receptivities, old or young, ignorant or learned, have each a combination-lock, which does not open to the same pressure, and which is as mysterious in its construction as individual resemblances and differences.

Apparently the foreign reviewer, heretofore referred to, has profited by the rich wisdom of the Pauline educational system: "And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ), that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."

If the writer, in adopting the guise of a foreign reviewer, has gone beyond legitimate criticism of the treatment of civil-rights by the courts, it is with him a matter of deep regret. It must not be forgotten, however, that the domain of truth is not susceptible of partition by any treaty with error; that the intercourse of Despotism with Liberty is always parturient of an evil brood, which may increase and multiply by cohabiting together; and that the perpetuation of Freedom requires the extermination, manu forti, of the incestuous progeny.

The author found himself engaged in a struggle where the