Page:On the Principles of Criminal Law.djvu/12

 ON THE

has been acknowledged for a considerable time, that our criminal laws require revision, and many changes have been made in them with a view to the more effectual suppression of crime, as well as to satisfy the more humane spirit which increasing civilization never fails to generate. Yet these amendments have been more of the nature of a patch on an old garment, or a lean-to against an old building, than what it was natural to wish for—namely, a taking away of useless parts, or a reconstruction of them on the plan of the original fabric.

Law, like other things, has its fundamental principles, and he who would construct or amend a code must first make himself well acquainted with those principles, otherwise he runs the risk of as signal a failure as would be experienced by the architect or mechanician who should form his plans without a due regard to the fundamental rules of his science: which are themselves derived from the great laws by which matter is regulated. The mechanician knows that the tendency of matter is to repose, and that if motion is to be communicated to it, friction, gravitation, the pressure of the atmosphere, and various other causes must be taken into account, and accurately calculated, ere he can judge of the exterior force required to overcome both the original vis inertiæ and the numerous interrupting causes. He does so, and if he