nd ready to help their kindred and friends;
moreover, they have a faith in Providence that those who have been
prompt to assist others will not be left destitute, should they
themselves come to need. By acting from these blended feelings, numbers
have rendered themselves incapable of standing up against a sudden
reverse. Nevertheless, these men, in common with all who have the
misfortune to be in want, if many theorists had their wish, would be
thrown upon one or other of those three sharp points of condition before
adverted to, from which the intervention of law has hitherto saved them.

All that has been said tends to show how the principle contended for
makes the gift of life more valuable, and has, it may be hoped, led to
the conclusion that its legitimate operation is to make men worthier of
that gift: in other words, not to degrade but to exalt human nature. But
the subject must not be dismissed without adverting to the indirect
influence of the same principle upon the moral sentiments of a people
among whom it is embodied in law. In our criminal jurisprudence there is
a maxim, deservedly eulogised, that it is better that ten guilty persons
should escape, than that one innocent man should suffer; so, also, might
it be maintained, with regard to the Poor Laws, that it is better for
the interests of humanity among the people at large, that ten
undeserving should partake of the funds provided, than that one morally
good man, through want of relief, should either have his principles
corrupted, or his energies destroyed; than that such a one should either
be driven to do wrong, or be cast to the earth in utter hopelessness. In
France, the English maxim of criminal jurisprudence is reversed; there,
it is deemed better that ten innocent men should suffer, than one guilty
escape: in France, there is no universal provision for the poor; and we
may judge of the small value set upon human life in the metropolis of
that country, by merely noticing the disrespect with which, after death,
the body is treated, not by the thoughtless vulgar, but in schools of
anatomy, presided over by men allowed to be, in their own art and in
physical science, among the most enlightened in the world. In the East,
where countries are overrun with population as with a weed, infinitely
more respect is shown to the remains of the deceased: and what a bitter
mockery is it, that this insensibility should be found where civil
polity is so busy in minor