'The law knows nothing concerning him, or his fortune, character, peace, or daughter. It is and ought to be dead to private feeling. It must consider nothing but the public benefit: nor must it ever condescend to vary from its own plain and literal construction.'
'That is strange: for its origin seems to have been in those very feelings, to which it is so dead.'
'Undoubtedly. But it provides for such feelings each under its individual class; and if a man, seeking redress, shall seek it under a wrong head, that is his fault; and not the fault of the law.'
'It is a fault, however, that is daily committed.'
'Ay to be sure: or there would be but few lawyers.'
'How so?'
'Why, if a man doing wrong was certain, or almost certain, of being detected and exposed, the chances would be so much against offenders that offences would of course diminish.'
'Then the prosperity of lawyers seems to result from the blunders which they themselves commit?'
'No doubt it does; and, as the blunders are innumerable, their prosperity must be in proportion.'
'There seems to be something wrong in this; though I cannot tell what or why.'