Part 2 (2/2)

[23] _Privilege_, in Roman jurisprudence, means the _exemption_ of one individual from the operation of a law. Political privileges, in the sense in which I employ the terms, mean those rights of the subjects of a free state, which are deemed so essential to the well-being of the commonwealth, that they are _excepted_ from the ordinary discretion of the magistrate, and guarded by the same fundamental laws which secure his authority.

[24] See an admirable pa.s.sage on this subject in Dr. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp. 101-112, in which the true doctrine of reformation is laid down with singular ability by that eloquent and philosophical writer.--See also Mr. Burke's Speech on Economical Reform; and Sir M. Hale on the Amendment of Laws, in the collection of my learned and most excellent friend, Mr. Hargrave, p. 248.

[25] Pour former un gouvernement modere, il faut combiner les puissances, les regler, les temperer, les faire agir, donner pour ainsi dire un lest a l'une pour la mettre en etat de resister a une autre, c'est un chef-d'oeuvre de legislation que le hasard fait rarement, et que rarement on laisse faire a la prudence. Un gouvernement despotique au contraire saute pour ainsi dire aux yeux; il est uniforme partout: comme il ne faut que des pa.s.sions pour l'etablir tout le monde est bon pour cela.--_Montesquieu, de l'Esprit des Loix_, liv. v. c. 14.

[26] Lord Bacon, Essay xxiv. Of Innovations.

[27] The reader will perceive that I allude to MONTESQUIEU, whom I never name without reverence, though I shall presume, with humility, to criticise his account of a government which he only saw at a distance.

[28] This principle is expressed by a writer of a very different character from these two great philosophers; a writer, ”_qu'on n'appellera plus philosophe, mais qu'on appellera le plus eloquent des sophistes_,” with great force, and, as his manner is, with some exaggeration.

Il n'y a point de principes abstraits dans la politique. C'est une science des calculs, des combinaisons, et des exceptions, selon les lieux, les tems, et les circonstances.--_Lettre de Rousseau au Marquis de Mirabeau_.

The second proposition is true; but the first is not a just inference from it.

[29] The casuistical subtleties are not perhaps greater than the subtleties of lawyers;_ but the latter are innocent, and even necessary_.--HUME's _Essays_, vol. ii. p. 558.

[30] ”Law,” said Dr. Johnson, ”is the science in which the greatest powers of understanding are applied to the greatest number of facts.”

n.o.body, who is acquainted with the variety and multiplicity of the subjects of jurisprudence, and with the prodigious powers of discrimination employed upon them, can doubt the truth of this observation.

[31] Burke's Works, vol. iii. p. 134.

[32] On the intimate connexion of these two codes, let us hear the words of Lord Holt, whose name never can be p.r.o.nounced without veneration, as long as wisdom and integrity are revered among men:--”Inasmuch _as the laws of all nations are doubtless raised out of the ruins of the civil law_, as all governments are sprung out of the ruins of the Roman empire, it must be owned _that the principles of our law are borrowed from the civil law_, therefore grounded upon the same reason in many things.”--12 _Mod._ 482.

FINIS.

J. MOYES, TOOK'S COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

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