Advice on the Study of Law: With Directions for the Choice of Books, and Additional Notes for the American Student |
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Page 2 - Longworth, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit: " The Trust, a comedy, in five acts, by Charles Breck," in conformity to the act of the congress of the United States...
Page 9 - ... he is taught by form, or precedent, rather than by principle. He is made to copy precedents, without knowing either their application, or those rules on which they are grounded. When he begins to prepare drafts, he is led to expect all his information from these forms ; and his knowledge is, in the end, as limited as the means by which he has been instructed.
Page 81 - ... est is the utmost his knowledge will arrive at, he must never aspire to form, and seldom expect to comprehend any arguments drawn a priori from the spirit of the laws, and the natural foundation of justice.
Page 34 - ... he directly inverted ; and proved, by two or three persons of credit, that he said (and the occasion made it probable, being upon the business of knighthood, which was understood to be a legal tax) ' the little finger of the law was heavier than the loins of the prerogative ; ' that imposition for knighthood amounting to a much higher rate than any act of the prerogative which had been exercised.
Page 81 - If practice be the whole he is taught, practice must also be the whole he will ever know: if he be uninstructed in the elements and first principles upon which the rule of practice is founded, the least variation from established precedents will totally distract and bewilder him...
Page 16 - Falsa enim est querela, paucissimis hominibus vim percipiendi quae tradantur esse concessam, plerosque vero laborem ac tempora tarditate ingenii perdere. Nam contra plures reperias et faciles in excogitando et ad discendum promptos. Quippe id est homini naturale, ac sicut aves ad volatum, equi ad cursum, ad saevitiam ferae gignuntur, ita nobis propria est mentis agitatio atque sollertia: unde origo animi caelestis creditur.
Page 17 - This is the characteristic of the human race; and as birds are provided by nature with a propensity to fly, horses to run, and wild beasts to be savage; so...
Page 124 - Sed non satis perspiciunt, quantum natura human!. ingénu valeat; quae ita est agilis ac velox, sic in omnem partem, ut ita dixerim, spectat, ut ne possit quidem aliquid agere tantum unum, in plura vero non eodem die modo, S sed eodem temporis momento vim suara intendat.
Page 68 - Nor have I the smallest scruple to assert, that the student who confines himself to the institutions of his own country, without joining to them any acquaintance with those of Imperial Rome, will never arrive at any considerable skill in the grounds and theory of his profession: though he may perhaps attain to a certain mechanical readiness in the forms and practical parts of the law, he will not be able to comprehend that enlarged and general idea of it, by which it is connected with the great STUDY...
Page 108 - ... se fert tamen felicissimam facilitatem. Quare non immerito ab hominibus aetatis suae regnare in judiciis dictus est : apud posteros vero id consecutus, ut Cicero jam non hominis nomen, sed eloquentiae habeatur. Hune igitur spectemus, hoc propositum nobis sit exemplum, ille se profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit.