If law be indeed a moral science, its principles should not only be pure, but its rules precise and easy of comprehension: its object the speedy, certain, and equal distribution of justice. That such is the wise and benevolent intentions of providence, no one can doubt; and we may confidently indulge the hope, that a period will yet arrive, when the progressive march of reason, wisdom, and learning, will give to jurisprudence that exalted rank in the general system of ethics, to which its important object and extensive operation justly entitle it. We may then with truth affirm, with the pious and learned Hooker: "Of LAW, no less can be acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power." Polity, end of the 1st book. Hooker's Ecclesiastical New-York, 24th March, 1814. JOHN RODMAN. ERRATA. Page 5, line 24, for 1812 read 1802. Page 9, at the end of the 7th line insert a semicolon instead of hyphen. |