Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/257

Exported from Wikisource on September 16, 2024

- tinued, "with the legal aspect of this case. That

aspect, as I have shown, makes an acquittal necessary. But whenever we are content to base our judgment upon technicalities, we tie our hands. We furnish room for one of those sophistries which trained intellects, the intellects of those who are far more learned in the law than we are, find it so easy to introduce. There is always the danger that a body of laymen, however unimpeachable their integrity, may be led from the plain and obvious path of their duty by a cunning stratagem. Again, in all those matters that seek ascertained fact for their basis, we must not forget that its supply is partial. Science is doing stupendous things for the world, but even it cannot yet supply mankind with anything beyond half-truths. There is no field of man's activities—philosophy, religion, politics, law—which does not depend upon these. Science can furnish us with sufficient evidence to hang a fellow creature, but the time is at hand when it will also have furnished us with such abundant knowledge of our eternal fallibility, that we shall cease to exact these reprisals. For are not all reprisals, which we include under the comprehensive term 'justice,' the fruit of an imperfect apprehension of the nature of man? It has been said truly that a little knowledge is dangerous, for in looking at the history of human opinion in all the phases through which it has passed, we see how the habit of basing our actions upon half-truths has been the cause of the manifold wounds of the world.

"I think, gentlemen, I have said enough to indicate the dangers which lurk in the temptation to apply in its arid literalness the letter of the law. I

About this digital edition

This e-book comes from the online library Wikisource. This multilingual digital library, built by volunteers, is committed to developing a free accessible collection of publications of every kind: novels, poems, magazines, letters...

We distribute our books for free, starting from works not copyrighted or published under a free license. You are free to use our e-books for any purpose (including commercial exploitation), under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license or, at your choice, those of the GNU FDL.

Wikisource is constantly looking for new members. During the transcription and proofreading of this book, it's possible that we made some errors. You can report them at this page.

The following users contributed to this book:

Table of Contents

Title page

Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/257

About