Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

REASONING AND DEDUCTIVE EvIDENCE. 425
In those branches of study which are conversant about moral
and political propositions, the nearest approach which I call
imagine to a hzypothetical science, analogous to mathematics, is to
be found in a code of municipal jurisprudence; or rather, might
be conceived to exist in such a code, if systematically carried into
execution, agreeably to certain general or fundamental principles. Whether these principles should, or should not, be
founded in justice and expediency, it is evidently possible, by
reasoning from them consequentially, to create an artificial or
conventional body of knowledge, more systematical, and, at the
same time, more complete in all its parts, than, in the present
state of our information, any science can be rendered, which
ultimately appeals to the eternal and immutable standards of
truth and falsehood, of right and wrong. This consideration
seems to me to throw some light on the following very curious
parallel which Leibnitz has drawn, with what justness I presume not to decide, between the works of the Roman civilians
and those of the Greek geometers. Few writers certainly have
been so fully qualified as he was, to pronounce on the characteristical merits of both.
"I have often said, that, after the writing of geometricians,
there exists nothing which, in point of force and of subtilty, can
be compared to the works of the Roman lawyers. And, as it
would be scarcely possible, from mere intrinsic evidence, to
distinguish a demonstration of Euclid's from one of Archimedes or of Apollonius, (the style of all of them appearing no
less uniform than if reason herself was speaking through their
organs,) so also the Roman lawyers all resemble each other
like twin-brothers; insomuch that, from the style alone of any
particular opinion or argument, hardly any conjecture could be
formed with respect to the author. Nor are the traces of a
refined and deeply meditated system of natural jurisprudence
anywhere to be found more visible, or in greater abundance.
And, even in those cases where its principles are departed from,
either in compliance with the language consecrated by technical
forms, or in consequence of new statutes, or of ancient traditions. the conclusions which the assumed hypothesis renders it
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