Practice will thus
be liberalized by theory, and theory restrained and corrected by
practice. The mere abstractionist or _doctrinaire_ would aim at the
formation of a code of great simplicity: the practitioner sees in it the
parent of uncertainty and injustice. Legal propositions cannot be framed
with the certainty of mathematical theories. The most carefully studied
language still leaves room for interpretation and construction. Time
itself, which works such mighty changes in all things, produces a state
of circumstances not in the mind of the lawgiver. The existing system,
it may be, is an unwieldy, inconvenient structure, heavy and grotesque
from the mixed character of its architecture outwardly, inwardly its
space too much occupied and its inmates embarrassed by passages and
circuities. The abstractionist would at once demolish it, and replace it
by a light, commodious and airy dwelling, more symmetrical and chaste in
its appearance, better fitted for the comfort and usefulness of its
inhabitants. The practitioner, who has become familiar with it, who
observes and admires that silent legislation of the people, which shows
itself not on the pages of the statute book, and receives its
recognition in courts of justice only after it has ceased to need even
that to give it form and vitality, and who understands, therefore, how,
with little inconvenience, it is made to accommodate itself to every
change of condition, sits down to a careful calculation of the cost and
risk of such wholesale change. History and practical experience, alike,
suggest to him, that the structure is a castle as well as a dwelling, a
place for security as well as comfort; that its foundations have been
laid deeply on the solid rock--its masonry more firmly knit together by
the time it has endured. Yet he will not deny that what can be done
consistently with security ought to be done. It is worse than in vain to
oppose all amendment. It will break down every artificial barrier that
may be reared against it, if it be not quietly and wisely directed in
those channels which it seeks at the least expense to security and
stability. Surely it is not conceding too much to this spirit to admit,
that laws should be composed in accurate but perspicuous language,
without redundancy of words or involution of sentences; that the policy
of public measures should not be wrapt up in the folds of State mystery;
and that all legislation should be based upon the princ