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highest and grandest science; and a complete
knowledge of it, as applicable to the conduct of
men, will be the highest reach of the human
mind, and an observance of it the greatest moral
achievement.
In the direction of this attainment the race of
men are slowly and blindly progressing. Stum
bling upon the law, and learning its text usually
by suffering its penalties again and again, and
finding, by repeated experiments, that they can
not be evaded, slowly and almost imperceptibly
men conform to its mandates.
II.
We may only glance upward at this high
theme while on our way to that which must oc
cupy our attention. We are to deal directly with
man’ s law—that which he enforces as emanating
from himself, and upon his sole authority, to
which he professes obedience, and which, as he
may, he compels others to obey, because it is his
law. When compared with the law as we have
glanced at it, how weak and short and narrow
and blind and futile it is! Professing to secure
the right, it often becomes the means and instru
ment of wrong: the guardian of innocence, it
often tears what it protects: the refuge of the