2 June 1805

Evidence

Intro

Ch. Means

Twenty years is the apprenticeship which a lawyer must serve before he is converted into a sage: twenty years is the time he is thus employing himself about the ends of justice. But of every twenty years thus employed about the ends of justice, if any part is employed in the endeavour to fulfil them, at least an equal part at least must have been employed in the endeavour to disfulfill them. In truth more than an equal part: for the greater the difficulty the greater the time and labour requisite to surmount it: and again, the greater the difficulty, the greater the glory, not to speak of the pay: and the greater the glory the greater the pleasure: the greater the pleasure in prospect the greater the existence[?] to which it gives birth.

The lamp of reason is kept burning in man's bosom by the breath of nature /the light of reason shines of itself/: no small labour is necessary to find it out or smell it.

Twenty years then of a sages apprenticeship are employed about injustice, some of them in combating it, more of them in helping it: set down the whole twenty, as if employed in combating it.