THE ETHICS OF LAW.1 Bv Col. J. T. Holmes. IT is the wisdom of the Odyssey, un This is not dispensing with the ideal, or changed by the flight of time, that, giving rein to licentiousness. Nothing hu •• True friendship's laws are by this rule expressed, man is perfect, and so the highest standard Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest." of ethics attainable in practice is a response to the calls of human and divine laws. With whom, what class, or guild, or call ing, or profession, in the affairs of this life, If driven to a single word as a definition, can they find more appropriate illustration that word in English would possibly be "duty." than with the ministers of justice! The eleven commandments contain the That justice, a crowning attribute of grandest code of ethical rules that the world Deity,' committed, in part, to human keep ing, for the centuries, is the touchstone of has ever seen. } Their spirit, friendly to human life, to the law. Every rule that favors and facili tates its administration in and through the human society, to good government, to hu conduct of judges and lawyers and officials man happiness, pervades the body of our human laws, written, unwritten, and mixed. lies within the domain of the theme pro Their details and refinements, ever of posed. binding obligation on the life and the con Professor Swing defined in attractive lan guage : " Geography is a map of the world; science, circumscribed and embraced by the ethics is a beautiful map of duty. This limits of duty, are infinite. "Learn to do well; seek judgment, re ethics is not Christianity, it is not even reli gion; but it is the sister of religion, because lieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, this path of duty is in full harmony, as to plead for the widow," are telling types from quality and direction, with the path of God." the pen that was touched with fire from the skies. "The science of right conduct and char In this code of duty are loyalty to law, acter." — The ethics of law must, therefore, loyalty to judges, loyalty to the talents and be the science of right conduct and char essential integrity of professional brethren, acter in the enactment and the enforcement loyalty to clients and to their honorable of law, and the " character " must affect causes. both actor and enactment. It is the fact, and the consciousness of Perhaps the most accurate recorded de finition — it is said to be most "satisfying" judge, jury, officers, and counsel that duty — is that of Professor Birks. " Ethics is has been performed, when the millionaire or the science of ideal humanity." The legal the penniless infant, the powerful corpora profession, being an intensely practical body tion or the natural person steps into the cor of humanity, substitutes that word practical ridor, victor or vanquished, after the forms for the professor's ideal. The code of and substance of law have been invoked and morals in law, or medicine, or religion, which finally exhausted, when thereunder justice remains in the region of the ideal is largely has been done, that true ethics are illus trated. useless. The abuse of the power of the law-giver, 1 An address delivered at a Columbus, Ohio, 1 iar banquet, the wabbling, and indirection, here and Feb. 8, 1895.
