'I believed that such abilities as I possessed lay in the direction of the discovery of truth rather than the obscuring of it.'
It is a curious and unfortunate circumstance, and not without its bearing on the present condition, that when the advocate meets the scientific man as a witness he too often encounters another advocate rather than a scientific man. A clever Scotchman, speaking of an action in what he had been engaged, told me that he was particularly glad when he knew that the opposite side was calling Lord Kelvin as a witness, 'because he is so inflexibly honest'. But the sting in these words is only for the expert witness, by no means for the barrister whose position is understood by every one. We must recognize to the full that, in its professional sphere, the work of the advocate is essential to the community, and that the experience of ages has failed to discover any other way of doing it. But in the quite different sphere of legislation, and especially government, too much of the advocate's spirit is dangerous: in a terrible crisis when law inevitably shrinks into the background, it is disastrous.
The parliamentary ordinance issued in 1372 by Edward III forbade the election of lawyers. The writs of the following year were very explicit: 'The knights of the shire are to be belted knights or squires, worthier and more honest and more expert in feats of arms, and discreet, and of no other condition; the citizens and burgesses are to be chosen from the more discreet and more sufficient of the class who have practical acquaintance with seamanship and the following of merchandise; no sheriff or person of any other condition than that specified may be chosen.'[1]
- ↑ Stubbs, Constitutional History, Library Ed., 1880, iii. 432.