A discourse on the life and character of Thomas Addis Emmet : pronounced, by request, in the New-York city-hall on the first day of March, 1828 / by Samuel L. Mitchill.

  • Mitchill, Samuel L. (Samuel Latham), 1764-1831.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A discourse on the life and character of Thomas Addis Emmet : pronounced, by request, in the New-York city-hall on the first day of March, 1828 / by Samuel L. Mitchill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    VI ments, will instantly perceive that a mind like his, had already ample stores of learning. He had entire know- ledge of moral principles and obligations. I Ie understood the rights and duties of man. He did not go there to get instruction on the nature of crimes and offences. On these and other fundamental qualifications of an enlarged soul, he had long before acquired his stock of intelligence. What he wanted was a technical acquaintance with rules, forms and precedents, and with the modes of applying them to the cases that offered, in practice. His mind possessed the versatility and strength adequate to these subjects. It was by some of his friends considered a sub- ject of regret, that he changed his profession. They said that judicial studies circumscribed the faculties and nar- rowed the mind. The observation, if it is intended parti- cularly for the pursuit of the law, is unjust. It applies with as much pertinency to any other employment which occupies the chief or entire attention. A man who is in- cessantly watching the auctions or the stocks, or wholly engaged in trade or manufacture, may as well be charged with limiting his intellectual faculties. The fact, how- ever, is, that lawyers, when they have directed their re- searches to extra-professional objects, have attained high, and even pre-eminent distinction. Who, for instance, will refuse to William Cowper, the praise of a consum- mate poet ? Will any one deny, that Baron JVlaseres, of the exchequer, was a distinguished mathematician ? Sir Francis Bacon is the wonder of his species, for the reform he made in reasoning and philosophizing; in substituting induction for syllogism ; in introducing the certainty of na- ture, into the place where the delusive subtleties of art prevailed; in rejecting idle hypothesis, to make room for logical theory; and in short, by introducing the sure poste- riori method of reasoning, instead of the fallacious priori mode. Sir William Jones, a prodigy of genius and talent, is an example of the most diversified attainments. He was capable of examining all manner of subjects, whether