Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/49

§. 1. is this all; for (as few perons of birth, or fortune, or even of cholatic education, will ubmit to the drudgery of ervitude and the manual labour of copying the trah of an office) hould this infatuation prevail to any coniderable degree, we mut rarely expect to ee a gentleman of ditinction or learning at the bar. And what the conequence may be, to have the interpretation and enforcement of the laws (which include the entire dipoal of our properties, liberties, and lives) fall wholly into the hands of obcure or illiterate men, is matter of very public concern.

inconveniences here pointed out can never be effectually prevented, but by making academical education a previous tep to the profeion of the common law, and at the ame time making the rudiments of the law a part of academical education. For ciences are of a ociable dipoition, and flourih bet in the neighbourhood of each other: nor is there any branch of learning, but may be helped and improved by aitances drawn from other arts. If therefore the tudent in our laws hath formed both his entiments and tyle, by perual and imitation of the puret claical writers, among whom the hitorians and orators will bet deerve his regard; if he can reaon with preciion, and eparate argument from fallacy, by the clear imple rules of pure unophiticated logic; if he can fix his attention, and teadily purue truth through any the mot intricate deduction, by the ue of mathematical demontrations; if he has enlarged his conceptions of nature and art, by a view of the everal branches of genuine, experimental, philoophy; if he has impreed on his mind the ound maxims of the law of nature, the bet and mot authentic foundation of human laws; if, latly, he has contemplated thoe maxims reduced to a practical ytem in the laws of imperial Rome; if he has done this or any part of it, (though all may be eaily done under as able intructors as ever graced any eats of learning) a tudent thus qualified may enter upon the tudy of the law with incredible advantage and reputation. And if, Rh