The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-24 00:00:00

commercial community of the world has surely called for
the destruction of as much that was old and useless as the

creation of what was new and requisite.

What have been

the means employed to this end ? With rare exceptions,
nothing but the judicial power. It has been left to the tri-
bunals themselves so to mould old principles into new forms
as to make them subserve modern uses. The law lying in

no fixed code, but only in tradition and the records of its
own application, was capable enough of being bent to new
purposes and fashioned to new ends ; and administered by
powerful minds with great labour, and a body of men drawn
from no particular or favoured class, the structure has been

raised, chiefly within the last century and a half, of which we
may well be proud. But this fabric, like the political con-
stitution of this country, has been a thing of ♦ery gradual

grqwth. If any one doubts this, let him ask himself
with what success he would be likely to search the year

books or the pages of the old reporters for any authority
in support of nine out of ten of the decisions to which a
single term now gives birth. Let him ask himself with
what probability of success he would search in the history
of remote centuries for the incidents and combinationswhich

now daily ask for judicial solution. Land, it is true, still
exists, but how occupied and enjoyed ? under what relations
and conditions ? to what ends and purposes, as contrasted
witk feudal days ? Such reflections as these serve to show
how great a change roust have passed over our judicature.

A few further reflections may tend to show with what in-
evitable defects• In saying this, lam far from the sugges-
tion or belief that this gradual progress of the law, built up

on old foundations, resting step by step on precedents

reaching far back into remote antiquity, and thus bringing
up to the surface the experience and wisdom of past gene-
rations, was altogether faulty in system, or void of invalu-
able features. It had, however, this capital defect, that the
powers of the courts of law were constructive only; under
the namo of adaptation they could practically create; under

no name could they destroy. But it was not enough to
create, power was needed to abolish ; it was not enough to
build, unless timely clearance could be made of the ruins
and rubbish of past structures. Here it is that in my
opinion the system has broken down. This defect it was
that choked the access of justice with empty forms and

worn:out expedients, and induced those vices of procedure

which the labours of the law reformers of the last 30 years
have scarce sufficed to remove. And this it is which still

affects the body of our laws themselves, binding our real
property in the clogs and shackles of feudal rights, and
tainting the laws of personalty with analogies largely drawn
from thesiame extinct system. Yes ; the life, the body, and

even the spirit of the feudal system has passed away, but
the armoury of its weapons and defences is still cherished

in:our halls of justice. Let us examine our English system

of law-making a little closer and observe the inevitable

process. Did a new position arise for which the jurist had
no precedent, analogy was resorted to. If no near analogy
was at hand, a more distant one was sought ; if none
found in the region of similar rights, a more remote
one taken from a different class or branch, was often

brought forward and bent, perhaps. distorted, till i
served the end. It might perhaps have been better to deal
with a new class of cases as avowedly demanding an appli

cation of law, for which there was no precedent ; and this
has been sometimes, though more rarely, done. But it must
be borne in mind that the courts at 'Westminster had, in

strictness, no power to make the law, but only to declare
it. They had no alternative, therefore, between declaring
the voice of the law to be absolutely silent, and adapting its
recorded oracles, such as they were, to the case in hand as
best they might. And thus the law has grown, professedly,
indeed, drawing its decisions from its own inexhaustible
stores, but in reality framing, adapting, creating as it went
along. Frem this method both evils and benefits have
flowed of a sufficiently remarkable character. It is no small
benefit that, in a fresh application of legal principles to a
new class of cases, there should be apparently mingled the
element and the sanction of time. The decisions of the
Courts being avowedly nothing more than enunciations of
the pre-existing law, though in reality new determinations
framed upon old principles, carry with them the veneration
of tradition, while they embody the spirit of the time. It
is another circumstance of value that the changes effected
are gradual, and while they do not anticipate, yet keep pace
with the necessities of the day. Further, when any new
subject engages the a' tention of the Courts, it is the pecu-
liar feature of this system that each step is taken separately,
never exceeding the particular circumstances of the case or
aiming at generalities. Thus the law falls into shape as the
subject becomes familiar; opportunity is given by the suc-
cession of each fresh example for contrast and reconsidera-
tion ; the direction first taken is followed out, modified, or
even reversed ; limitations and qualifications make their
appearance, and something like a general rule at length
emerges, well suited to the actual exigencies from the ex-
perience of which it is drawn, If this is legislation, it is
legislation of the best kind, for it is framed by those who
have no popular interests to support or collateral ends
to attain, and who bring to the task carefully-trained in-
tellects familiar with the subject in hand. The evils of
the system are, perhaps, equally apparent. Invested with
a power larger than avowed, the tribunals may be said to
have too much or too little confided to them. If they frame
new applications of the law they are obliged to do so on old
models only, and administer them under old forms. Tied
down by the east, they are too little set at large to work out
entire justice. Working in the trammels of tradition, they
are driven to the resort of legal fictions. Founding all de-
cisions on precedent, they are circumscribed and limited by
the analogies on which their decisions are founded. The
broad role of:right is but too apt to suffer in such circum-
stances, and full justice must needs be at times .horn down
to obtain a footing on precedent. But the worst feature
attending a law purely traditional is its incapacity to obli.
terate. Tradition is the expression of permanence—and if
it perpetuates truth it also embalms error. It renders what
is really obsolete unquestioned because it is familiar, and
fences it from attack by giving it the immunity of age.
Thus it is that many of the positions of our law pass with-
out inquiry, though their justice might well be challenged.
Now, let us compare this system of law-making with the
more comprehensive system of a code adopted in most other
countries. The attractions of the code are obvious, and its
faults not so apparent. The object of both is alike to form a
permanent frame for the action of justice. The chief point
of contrast lies here—the framers of a code propound their
principles in accord with justice, and casting about in their
minds to imagine the possible cases falling within them, ad-
just them accordingly, giving them expression in elaborated
rules. The English system frames no rule in advance, looks
backwards in place of forward, and substitutes the actual
experiences of the past for the possibilities of the future.
True, the future is not provided for in tho latter, except so
far as principles are gradually evolved, which make solution
not difficult or unexpected when the case arises, whereas
the former professes to make such provision. But is this
provision ever made with success ? Does any code really
offer a text, which, when applied to the circumstances of an
individual case, at once, and without reasonable doubt, de-
cide it? Let the innummerable decisions on some of the
most celebrated codes answer the question. Take the Or-
dennance de la Marine of Louis X IV. How:simple and brief,
and apparently plain the text, Yet who ever read the inge-
nious commentaries of Vella or Boulay-Paty on any and
every article of it without owning that the text was only
plain because the difficulties of particular cases were not
present to view, and only simple because their complications
were excluded ? The same thing is true of the codes of the
French empire, and of all others which the world ever saw.
The truth is that the intricacies and complexity of possible
combinations of fact are beyond the range of human con-
ception, and any attempt to foresee and provide for them all
beforehand, and dispense a ready made justice with success,
will give little reward to the labour it wastes. But a code
resting on no detailed decisions or elaborated instances to
expound it has an especial evil of its own. There is no more
fruitful source of doubt and litigation than the meaning of
language. The careless use of language does much, but the
inadequacy of lapguage as the vehicle of precise thought
does perhaps even more. What treaty, or code, or statute
was ever so framed that its meaning in all possible contin-
gencies was free from reasonable controversy ? Now the
especial evil of all codes and statutes is that over and above
the difficulty of framing adequate principles the ambiguities
of construction aro introduced. Expressed in certain defi-
nite language, its force depends on the interpretation which
ingenuity may give or deny it. And here the system of case
law contrasts favourably, for its principles, enforced in every
variety of language, and under every turn of thought,
shine out in their application rather than in their expres-
sion, and are further removed from the cavil of words.
The most ardent lover of uniformity and symmetry would
hardly be prepared then to surrender the treasures of our
common law for the inevitable litigation of a code ; but does
it follow that nothing can be done to render our system
more uniform, and our jurisprudence more compact and
harmonious ? We have nothing in the English law between
the succinctness of a maxim and the detail of an individual
case. We have no declared body of rules, however general,
and no set of political principles, however broad. There are
no doubt to be found scattered up and down our reports
enunciations of general legal principles, but even they have
at, n far the
i
never been collated or brought together,and their mutual
dependence shown by group or contrast. B i
majority of cases decided,no general principle s propounded.
The principle is indeed there, guiding and controlling the
decision, a silent appeal is made to it in the mind of the
tribunal, but such is the jealous caution of the judicial mind,
and so great the obstacles cast in the way of generalities
by a system which calls only for the decision of the indivi-
dual cases, that broad rules are seldom or never laid down.
Hence it comes that cases containing the law on one par-
ticular branch or subject are rarely appealed to in discussion
of another branch or subject, though these may be cognate
and though the law ought to be and probably is in harmony
with respect to them. No subject can be treated philoso-
phically that is treated entirely in detail, and no se stem can
promise harmony that is based on separate trains of inde-
pendent thought. Is it not possible to amend our legal
system in this regard ? If it be considered not wise that
o
the tribunal should do more than decide the individual case,
and pledge itself as it were to an area of law wider than that
the matter
tterainnahtoantdhe—eaxntdentthtios twohpicrheclituhdeasthecu l
r
possibility of prejudging difficulties not foreseen ; still the
lawc already be. 7 ty
al-
ready as
been actually applied, might surely be bound together
and epitomised for the practical use of mankind. Is not this
what in fact and practice every well-read lawyerr more or
less does for himself ? 'When a case presents itself to his
mind fur legal bolution duet he inetautly recur to tome eye-

cific case forming a precedent, or does ho rather fall back
upon the general legal principles with which his mind is

embued P Now, I hope lam not too sanguine in this, but
I cannot resist the belief thatwithin the bounds of labour and
time the general principles and broad bases on which our
common law reposes, and which tacitly guide the decisions
of our Courts', might be brought to the surface, grouped
together, subordinated in their several relations, and con-
trasted in their differences. (Cheers.) An attempt of the

kind, and not without great success, was made by the late
Mr Smith in his Leading Cases. And those who have studied
the notes of that book will not fail to perceive how easily
and with what success large groups of cases treated and
handled together have been made to yield up short and suc-
cinct propositions of law. What I desire to see is a similar
attempt made with authority, and on a much larger scale,
to be finally confirmed by Act of Parliament; but Ido not
conceal from myself that the first judicial minds of the coun-
try are alone adequate to the task, at least in its ultimate
stages, and that it is far beyond the rerch cf the unpaid ser-
vices of occupied men. If such a result could be obtained,
the benefits are not doubtful—to the student and the general
public the vast area covered by the law would present a
district set out in order in place of a tangled thicket. The
true bearing of each abstract proposition would stand out
plainly, because side by side with others of a similar nature.
Hero, too, another great advantage would be reaped.
As the decisionewhich have radiated from some central case
came to be classed together, and their common principles
with its qualifications and limitations extracted, all those of
a questionablesoundness would come to be suppressed. That
I our books abound with such cannot be denied; and their

expurgation by authority is an end of great importance. For
once entangled in them, the Courts are either led astray or
only escape to the doing of justice by some refined distinc-
tion, which in its turn becomes a snare for the future. It is
thus that error once committed under our present system is

.__ .
perpetuated. And decisions whose soundness is doubted
for years continue for years to be the rule of judgment and
the source of endless distinctions and refinements, until at
last they are either trampled out by the reiterated dicta of

the tribunals, or reversed in regular form by the Courts of
Appeal. Many, too, are the instances of discordant deci-
sions on identically the same subject, and it is not an un-
common remark " That all the cases upon this subject
cannot be reconciled." Any classification by authority
must decide between them, and thus remove, pro tanto,
one of the worst evils of the law—uncertainty. But the

great gain that would accrue to the law would be the reduc-
tion of its bulk. We possess in our legal records accumu-
lated instances of exact justice, in individual cases, series

after series of social duties and relative rights, set forth in

every variety and combination and pursued into the minutest
details, and to all of which, each in their turn, the law has
been applied and adjusted with a precisi3n and laborious
rectitude such as the legal annals of no other country can,

I believe, produce. The national attribute of exact labour on
minute objects has stood us in good stead in the beating of
our laws. And they bear the impress throughout of the
. .

national characteristics in the spirit of liberty, the spirit o;

equality, and the hatred of injustice and oppression. But
they exist in a scattered, inconvenient, and unmanageable
form. Instances in place of precepts, examples in place of
rules, our recorded decisions stand thick together like a fair
field of grain—full of wealth and worth, but waiting the
hand that shall gather it into sheaves and store it to the UB6
of man. (Cheers.) And here I would observe that the
method I propose is properly a digest, and not a code; and
a digest has this advantage, that it permits of gradual for-
mation. Unlike a code, which is the offspring of large and
comprehensive views— and should deal with all subjects as
a whole—a digest, with narrower aims, may properly be
worked out piecemeal. In times past the "Diget of Comyn"
and the "Abridgment of Bacon" did much in this direction,
though they owned no authority but that of their intrinsic
merit. And in modern times the law would be almost unap-

proachablo but for the text-books, some of them executed
with admirable talent, with which the labours of the Bar
have enriched us. If there be those who fear to handle a
body of laws which, on the whole, work so well, I would ob-
serve to them that I propose toalisplace nothing. I would
not that the authority of the cases should necessarily be ex-
tinguished by the authority of the digest. Unless expressly
set aside, and inconsistent with decisions better approved, I
would have all decisions remain of authority, content to await
the time when the life shall have passed into their offspring,
and they fall away of themselves, and pass into a sure decay.
(Cheers.) If there be those who think that a system which
has survived with success for five or six centuries can have
no great inherent vice, I would recall the attention of such
to the position in which we now find ourselves. Each year
now calls int) being a number of decided cases so long as to
threaten the extinction of the law as a conscientious study.
I do not stop to inquire into causes, but the fact is that the
present century has added more decided cases to the law
than are to be found in the records of the five preceding
centuries put together. (Cheers.) This vast agglomeration
breeds not only confusion in those who are to bo bound by
the law, but inconsistency in those who administer it. No
power of assimilation can keep pace with that of such pro-
duction, and the tribunals, occupied to the full with the
business before them, have little time to master the results
of cotemporary decisions. This evil is aggravated by a c)m-
petitive system of reporting, and the records of useless de-
cisions; but the source of it lies deeper, and the time has
now come when we may well ask whether the record of our
law is always to lie in detailed instances, whether its prin-
ciples are capable of no exposition, and whether the most
laborious and wealthy community in the world will be con-
tent to pass on to posterity a shapeless mass of scattered
laws as the legacy of its labours and its wealth. (Hear,
hear.) But the cause is that of the present generation as
well as of posterity. Is the nation well content with things
as they are ? Are the cenclueiens of the law any longer
accepted without test, and received without inquiry ?
Time was when the law had its priesthood, its mysteries,
and its votaries. The science of the few was ever the
mystery of the many; and while want of knowledge in
the latter forbade the support of reason, possession of it in
the former commanded the homage of reverence. Our
people have ever loved justice and order, and revered the
law as the guardian of both. Perhaps this reverence has
been in past times carried too far. It concealed its errors
and even gilded its faults, Did an estate pass to an unex-
pected hand by a flaw, the victim received his condolence,
but the superior wisdom of the law had its worship. If
strength has the element of the sublime, the inscrutable
has not less so, and it was just because the ways of the law
sometimes passed reason that they achieved admiration. A
severe exactitude in the application of a system highly tech-
nical has ever been the foremost blemish of English juris
prudence. It was not difficult to exalt this severity of preci-
sion into the inflexibility of justice, and mistake an iron rule
for a golden precept. And such was the tendency of the
national mind, hugging itself in the conceit that its laws
were not as the laws of other countries, and well content to
worship what seemed at least mysteriously wise. But our
lot is cast in times of a far other character, Reason and
veneration—the two great forces by which instituted rights
aro upheld—bid fair to change places, and while one has
waxed, the other has waned, There is no subject so sacred,
not even the sacred subject of all, which escapes inquiry,
observation, and the hard scrutiny of distrust. The law is
no exception, and the popular sense ci justice may not be
violated with impunity, though its violation may be backed
by the sanction of forms or rules, however time-honoured or
venerable. The time has surely come when those wfio really
revere our noble laws should have it at heart to place them
beyond cavil, and give them that hold on the good sense of
the people which they have ever had on their affections, and
it should not be difficult. For all reform is now possible,
and the mere respect for what exists presents no longer any
barrier to improvement. The slow formation of a general
opinion, and the vis inertice which holds the present in its
place—characteristics both of the national temperament
—are the chief impediments to salutary change, Autho-
rity denies nothing now to the general desire, and the
waters of discontent are no longer pent up till they over-
flow. But, for this very reason, the current of amendment
flows torpid and slow. The active pressure of resistance,
forcing men into concord towards their common aim, is with-
drawn, and freedom to think and act with independence
brings with it freedom to differ. It is therefore in times
such as these that the attainment of a general consent is
most difficult. The most proper method to come at this
purpose is general discussion. For interchange of ideas and
comparison of mind begets both ultimate agreement
and moral force to carry it into action. IV o are here met
with this intention, and as the great honour has fallen to
my lot of presiding over your deliberations, I have thus
made venture on your patience, affecting not to inform, but
rather to remind, and for the greater part to confirm rather
than convince. But it is from those like yourselves, who
have the knowledge to conceive and the public spirit to ela-
borate, that the impulse of reform must come. The spring
and root of all our law reforms have been laid in public
opinion. They have been moulded into shape and carried
into result by the unpaid services of lawyers. It is good to
reflect on this, for the power and the machinery are still
ours ; and it is no bad omen for future amendment that
men have been found skilled in the mysteries of the law, and
nurtured in its most cherished anomalies, ready to turn that
skill to their amendment or removal. (Cheers.) I venture
not on any enumeration of the numerous shortcomings and
defects of our legal system, beyond that to which I have
shortly drawn attention. They will be amply discussed, I
trust, by others. But I may add a word on the spirit legal
changes should be approached. The great evil which has
ever beset our j udicature is that which legal education engen-
ders—the prizing above their worth of refinement and preci-
sion. This it was that in legal procedure sacrificed the
substantial rights of thousands at the altar of mere words.
It culminated in the new rules of pleading of 1831, and
begot its own downfall in the triumph of its complete
aioption. But it still lives in all branches of our law. The
fear of ping too far ever present ; the fear of not reaching
justice faintly felt ; positive injustice worked in the present
to avoid possible injustice in the future ; rights so bound in
safeguards, lest they become wrongs, that they cease to be
worth asserting; a structure in which form ever overlays
substance, and a contest in which justice is apt to sink
under the weight of her own armour ; while precedent,
casting its shadow both ways, binds the present by the
errors of the past, and narrows it by the possibilities of the
future—such are the fruits which a spirit of over•-jealous
caution and exactitude is calculated to bear. Nor is it the
spirit of the lawyer alone. It is not long since a great peer
was accused of shooting at a fellow-subject in a duel and
acquitted, beeaute it was sot made to appear beyond doubt

that his Christian name was. Harvey Garnett Phipps, as
charged, and not Harvey only, to which the proof extended.
(Hear, hear.) Nor have many years passed since a great
demagogue conspired, if he did not levy war, against the
Queen, and went unpunished after conviction, because the
highest tribunal in the land decided in accordance with the
law that the proceedings were faulty in form. And yet
our own generation looked on without outcry, and
accepted these results without indignation. To all
those who would earnestly lay their hand to the task of law
reform, I would counsel the necessary boldness to grapple
with this evil. I speak not of that boldness which is as-
sumed to challenge the admiration of the multitude,and play
the part of superior wisdom in the eyes of the ignorant by
sweeping denunciations of that to which others bow; nor
of that audacity which is the spurious offspring of venera-
tion, chafing under the reverence of others, and casting off
its own in a spirit of defiance; nor of that begotten of idle.
ness and shallowness, which feels the wrongs of a system
whose true defects it takes not the pains to discover, and
flies out into a general condemnation. But I mean that
boldness which is born of the firm conviction that whatever
is contrary to common sense and natural justice ought also
to be contrary to law—(cheers)—the boldness which fears
not to depart from the past to render homage to the pre-
sent; which acknowledges that the law is made for man,
and not man for the la w—(eheers)—and which marches
straight to its object, preferring simplicity with some de-
fects to the perfection at which complexity aims, but rarely
reaches. (Loud cheers.)
At the conclusion of the address,
Lord BROUGHAM commended the sound and comprehen-
sive, the bold and yet temperate treatment which had been
given to its subject, and warmly expressed the entire satis-
faction with which he had listened to its delivery.
The business of the several sections was then commenced.

SPIRIT OF THE PITBLIO JOURNALS.

TlMES.—There must always be a certain family

likeness between inaugural addresses, and there is
something more than a resemblance between the
objects of the Social Science Congress and those
professed by one department of the British Asso-

ciation. Yet how great is the contrast between
the discourses of Sir C. Lyell at Birmingham and of

Lord Brougham at York ! The one is a special and
minute discussion of two limited subjects, the other
a review of the advance made by civilisation in all
its branches during the past year. While Sir 0.
Lyell strictly confines himself to the science of
which he is at once an acknowledged master and a

patient disciple, Lord Brougham ranges at large

over the vast field of human interests, dispensing
praise and blame in a tone of authority, and criti-
cising with parental confidence each effort at social
improvement. The difference is striking, but it is
not unnatural. It is partly due to the character of
the two Associations, and partly to the character of
the two Presidents. The Association for the Pro.

motion of Social Science purports to be a joint
stock company, with unlimited liability, for making
the world better than it is. It is but eight years
old, and is still conscious of being on its trial.
Visible progress is a condition of its existence, and
unless some proofs of its practical success could be
produced yearly, the loyalty of its members would
be liable to if ig. Science, properly so called, is a
very different thing, It reposes on a foundation
beyond cavil, it can appeal to victories achieved in
far-off times, when social relations were comprised
within the bosom of the family, and the intercourse
of nations was an interchange of wrongs. It can
point to a long and august succession of apostles and
heroes and martyrs and confessors—a veritable
Church in the catacombs—whose sublime devotion to
the study of Nature in the evil days of tyrannical
ignorance would have ennobled researches ever so
barren of results. Physical science is not dependent
on popular support ; it can afford to wait for the
recognition of its services, and, though it never was
more " fructiferous" than in the present age, it
would be earnestly cultivated if these fruits should
chance to fail for a season. No one appreciates this
better than Lord Brougham, but Lord Brougham
as a savant is not identical with Lord Brougham as
a social philosopher, He can recollect the invention
of philanthropy, but he cannot recollect the invention
of natural science, and he is justified in patronising
the one as he would not venture. to patronise the
other. Moreover, various as is the assortment of
theories and movements upon which he touches,
there is scarcely one in which he has not borne a
part more or less active. If he sometimes lapses into
Herodotean discursiveness, he has an Herodotean
experience to excuse and enliven it. To attempt a
digest of an address which is itself a digest of a
year's history would be an idle task. Lord Brougham
is a privileged man, but journalists are not, and our
readers would scarcely bear with us if we were to
take the same liberties with them. Perhaps a short
analysis of one column will give them an adequate
impression of the work which the President has cut
out for his colleagues. First, then, comes the
question of extradition treaties, followed by some
remarks on colonial policy, a few sentences of rebuke
to the Americans, a notice of the plan for abridging
the labours of Parliamentary Committees, a well
deserved compliment to Mr. Gladstone's scheme of
Government insurance, comments on the Lord
Chancellor's County Courts Bill, a suggestion as to
the compilation of judicial statistics, a recommen-
dation of the, sewerage problem to the Sanitary
Department, a good word for the security of railway
passengers, and a discussion on the present position
of the convict system. Multiplying this miscel-
laneous list by five, we get a tolerably fair idea of
the world of reform opened out to the students of
Social Science. It is like reading notices of motions
for the Parliament of Man foreseen in vision by the
poet. Still, it must be confessed that from this mass
of projects most of us could select some that are
really within our own power to promote, and are
manifestly worth promoting. It is a little unfortu-
nate, though perhaps unavoidable, that these, upon
which all can agree, should be jumbled, together with
others which are still fiercely disputed, and remain
unreatised, not for want of attention to them, but be-
cause their utility is not proved. An instance of
the former is the establishment of cooking depots
for the working classes—an experiment of which
the advantage is obvious and unqualified, so long as
the self-supporting principle is maintained. An
instance of the latter is Mr Lawson's abortive Bill,
miscalled Permissive,—since what it permits is an
arbitrary control or beer drinkers by their teetotal
neighbours—which happens to be the subject im-
mediately preceding cooking depots in Lord
Brougham's address. No one can deny that this is
a proper question for such an Association to enter-
tain, but until a new code of social rights can be
established, we do not anticipate much good from
referring it to the " Jurisprudence Department."
A still more questionable function, and one which
Lord Brougham exercises with great freedom on
these occasions, is that of dogmatising upon the
policy of foreign Governments. This is no part of
the legitimate duty of a quasi-scientific body, and it
must tend, if it become a general practice, to excite
most unscientific dissensions. Perhaps there is no
more useful province of its operations than the cor-
respondence with foreign reformers, and the accu-
mulation of facts which may correct and modify our
national prejudices. The very opposite effect, how-
ever, would be produced if the laudation of our own
institutions should become the order of the day, and
foreign visitors should hear attacks on their own
which they cannot answer, and which can serve no
conceivable purpose. There are a great many pas-
sages in this discourse which we cannot but regard
as mischievous digressions. The conduct of Prussia
towards Denmark has, indeed, been infamous, and
neither the English Press nor the English Parlia-
ment has failed to characterise it as it deserved, but
the Concert-room at York at the opening of the
Social Science Congress is no fit place for denounc-
ing it. The emancipation of the serfs in Russia comes
within the scope of Social Science, if it has any scope,
but the oppression of Poland does not. The develop-
ment of public instruction in France, and the
changes in the French code of bankruptcy, are
steps in social progress, but the continuance of
restrictions on liberty and the doctrines of Duke
Persigny belong exclusively to politics. The same,
we think, may be said of Lord Brougham's novel
proposal that the show of hands should govern an
election in this country unless it should be nega-
tived by the poll in a certain proportion; but this,
though a political, is at least a domestic affair, and
connected with the prevention of bribery. What
really does harm and would ultimately provo fatal
to the existence of the Association is the pretension
to take cognisance of everything that passes in the
world. If its centre is indefinite, there is the more
reason that its circumference should be defined, and
that it should not ramble into spheres where the
moral enthusiasm of individuals must be wasted or
crushed. There is, indeed, hardly any limit to the
power of organised agitation where it can be car-
ried on long enough to leaven the opinion of a
whole generation. Duelling in this country yielded
much more easily than could have been expected,
and those who did so much to abolish slavery may
be pardoned for indulging the hope of diminishing
oppression and war. It is doubtless the recollec-
tion of the marvellous triumphs that have been thus
won in his own lifetime, and a sincere faith in the
force of reason and unity of truth, that actuated
Lord Brougham in uttering these protests. From
his own point of view he may be right, and no one
can refuse respect to the testimony which he some-
times delivers in the House of Lords against prin-
ciples which he has spent his life in combating, We
honour, as a special gift, the sympathy with pro-
gress in every form which leaves 11101 no rest, even
at the ago of 87, unless he speaks his mind in this
way. Only we counsel his followers not to be mis-
led by his example, nor to suppose that arbitrary
monarchs or powerful democracies can be converted

from the error of their ways by the machinery at

their disposal.
HERALD.—WO have looked up and down the tall
columns of Lord Brougham's address, and we have
well nigh shaken in our shoes to think how creation
is being sectionised by these terrible philosophers.
'There
are lady philosophers who wear gold
d
mounted spectacles, and who look as though they
were ready to go on 'Change and buy stocks, or,
prepared to show us the only correct method 01
laying out a kitchen garden. Then, there is the
male philosopher, with voice preternaturally calm,
with a beard most scientifically arranged, and With,
facial muscles so perfectly composed that we fee'
assured he must long ago have settled every mortal
question to his complete satisfaction. It is in vain
that we devote our attention to the most ordinal
pursuits, and profess that we have no desire to be
either scientific or philosophical. We want to die,
ordinary things in an ordinary way, and to 0!"'
them by ordinary names ; but we find to our die'
may that a powerful organisation has determined
that we shall do nothing of the kind. The philesew
phers are after us—hue and cry—and we find that
we can neither 'poke our fire nor eat our dinner
without being terrified with some awful lecture 011
the scientific principles which we are said to be
recklessly attempting to set at defiance. Even poor
Betsy is harassed almost to the point of giving 00,7
tam, by being bored about " domestic economy'
when she only wants to sweep the room or dust our
bookshelves. The " poor little ploughboy" is chase°
" across the lea" by a female illuminati, who appear.
to call out—" You little rascal, you have forgotteo
all you learnt at school ; I'll put you in Section G
that I will." We almost dread the sections as we
do the stocks, and are inclined to look upon the
whole process as something closely akin to vivisec'
tam itself. What with the National Association for
the Promotion of Social Science, and the Britists
Association for the Advancement of Science which
is not considered social, we are upon the horns. 0f
a dilemma. Whether we are social or unsocielt
whether we meddle with bodies organic, inorgallit
or disorganised, we find the trap with its moral",
open, and incontinently tumble in before we are
aware of it. There is a perfect mania in the prawn;
day for systematising, classifying, cataloguing, 013,T
pigeon-holing. To those philosophers men O."
women are like physic bottles or luggage at a rail:
way station, forthwith to be labelled. We go about
with tickets on our backs, and are grouped accord''
ing to some particular system—we are looked st
through microscopes, and are put into algebratai
formulae. We become " quantities," and .0.11
reckoned up as decimals ; our pendia:We°
are photographed, and we are " classed" ee],
cording peculiarities which have their fouta4c;
tions somewhere in the origin of species, taw
which go up into the region of the fixed Ago'
Every avenue of escape is closed, and for all prat'
tical purposes we are as surely ticketed, cabineted,
and microscoped, as if we were so many stag'
beetles stuck upon pins, or fossilised relics of the
pre-Adamite earth. The spell is upon us, and there
is no getting away. Learned ladies and pedantic
gentlemen have noted our peculiarities and or
surroundings, and whether we consent or protes!
they will write their "papers" about us and rest,
us down at the very next meeting—or "congress,
—of their several tribes. But what did Lora
Brougham say on these various topics, and on the
hundred and one other subjects which his lordship
managed somehow or other to cram into hie orato;
rival carpet bag 1' The noble president said a great
many very wise things, not a few very good thiriq
and, upon the whole, said just what he liked an
what the people were pleased to bear. Ho tripped
himself up a little in his own net while wading
through the depths of the German Ocean, telling
his hearers, firstly, that " it is never honourablei
nay, hardly even safe—for a great nation to stall"
by and witness unmoved acts of inexcusable aggrey
awn, to the violation of all national rights ;" then;
secondly, that although England left the Danes
to
their fate, " the outcry that she was humbled is cg
groundless as it would be to say that any one vrA°
saw a murder committed by a gang of argic,
ruffians was humbled if he did not stay thet
hands ;" and then, thirdly, that when we told Den.
mark she should not " stand alone," yet "prowls!,
of help there was none given." Let us hope that 1.:
ever Lord Brougham, in going down from Londe':
to some Jericho in the provinces, should be so
fortunate es to fall among thieves, his lordship
be spared the misery of being told that althong.;
neither priest, Levite, nor policeman came tobi;
help, yet they do not feel at all "humbled'' b,
having left him to shift for himself, notwithstanding
their previous intimation that he should not " stand
alone," and despite their present confession that D.
has been subjected to an act of " inexcusable aggrec,
sion." Nevertheless, his lordship's harangue 13.9:
many excellent points, and is worthy of his decline
ing years. "The old man eloquent" shines to Oa
last, though he dates from 1778; and vast, indee
are the mental stores—wonderful the protracteee
vigour—which at so advanced an age can fix till,
attention and excite the admiration not only 01
coterie at York but of the nation at large.