Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/459

 acquire by virtue of your relation to your clients is their exclusive property, and should never be used for unworthy ends. In identifying yourselves with your clients for purposes of advocacy, you should never lose sight of the fact, even in the heat of debate and amidst the prospect of defeat, that you belong to an honourable profession, and that you should never say or do aught that is inconsistent with its dignity. Try always to prevent fraud upon justice, and steadily keep in view what one of your own ancient Law-givers has said. The Court of Justice, says Manu, is a sacred temple, the Judges presiding over it are, though men, humble instruments in the hands of an unseen deity who influences their judgments in the interests of truth, and those who enter this holy edifice with unholy thoughts or desecrate it with unworthy actions, are traitors to their God and country. Those of you who may rise to the Bench should recollect that the power you may be called upon to exercise in the name of your Sovereign is, according to another of your ancestors, a power divine. You should never be hasty or impulsive, and thereby shut out even the faintest ray of light from forensic discussion. You should never heed any appeal to your passion or frailty, and never allow your attention to stray from the legal points of a case either amidst violent declamation or pathetic appeals, and always see before you pronounce your decision that the responsibility rests not with you individually, but either with the Law-giver or with the science of jurisprudence. You should not Continue to learn Hindu Law, as is usually the case, solely from English translations. Sanscrit manuscripts are fast dying out in the country, and you should hasten to eompare, criticise and publish critical editions of your Smrities, Upasmrities, and Digests, and so much of your cere- monial law as is necessary to their elucidation. Some of you should also publish treatises on the relations of life and on their aims and scope as recognized at different periods, carefully noting the successive changes due to new social necessities, and thus compile an authentic history of the past as supplied by legal literature. Before the bar becomes a power in India, you will have to divide yourselves into two classes of labourers, and bring into existence two schools of thought, the historic and the critical school. I must also note that the Native bar, as it exists at present, is without an organization and therefore, without much power for good. The time has come for the formation of a Vakil's association which may, in the course of time, take up a position analogous to the Inns of Court in England, and thereby bring the whole