Blackstone was by no means what would now be called a scientific jurist. He has only the vaguest possible grasp of the elementary conceptions of law. He evidently regards the law of gravitation, the law of nature, and the law of England, as different examples of the same principle—as rules of action or conduct imposed by a superior power on its subjects. He propounds in terms the doctrine that municipal or positive laws derive their validity from their conformity to the so-called law of nature or law of God. “No human laws,” he says, “are of any validity if contrary to this.” His distinction between rights of persons and rights of things, implying, as it would appear, that things as well as persons have rights, is attributable to a misunderstanding of the technical terms of the Roman law. In distinguishing between private and public wrongs (civil injuries and crimes) he fails to seize the true principle of the division. Austin, who accused him of following slavishly the method of Hale’s Analysis of the Law, declares that he “blindly adopts the mistakes of his rude and compendious model; missing invariably, with a nice and surprising infelicity, the pregnant but obscure suggestions which it proffered to his attention, and which would have guided a discerning and inventive writer to an arrangement comparatively just.” By the want of precise and closely-defined terms, and his tendency to substitute loose literary phrases, he falls occasionally into irreconcilable contradictions. Even in discussing a subject of such immense importance as equity, he hardly takes pains to discriminate between the legal and popular senses of the word, and, from the small place which equity jurisprudence occupies in his arrangement, he would scarcely seem to have realized its true position in the law of England. Subject, however, to these strictures the completeness of the treatise, its serviceable if not scientific order, and the power of lucid exposition possessed by the author demand emphatic recognition. Blackstone’s defects as a jurist are more conspicuous in his treatment of the underlying principles and fundamental divisions of the law than in his account of its substantive principles.
Blackstone by no means confines himself to the work of a legal commentator. It is his business, especially when he touches on the framework of society, to find a basis in history and reason for all the most characteristic English institutions. There is not much either of philosophy or fairness in this part of his work. Whether through the natural conservatism of a lawyer, or through his own timidity and subserviency as a man and a politician, he is always found to be a specious defender of the existing order of things. Bentham accuses him of being the enemy of all reform, and the unscrupulous champion of every form of professional chicanery. Austin says that he truckled to the sinister interests and mischievous prejudices of power, and that he flattered the overweening conceit of the English in their own institutions. He displays much ingenuity in giving a plausible form to common prejudices and fallacies; but it is by no means clear that he was not imposed upon himself. More undeniable than the political fairness of the treatise is its merits as a work of literature. It is written in a most graceful and attractive style, and although no opportunity of embellishment has been lost, the language is always simple and clear. Whether it is owing to its literary graces, or to its success in flattering the prejudices of the public to which it was addressed, the influence of the book in England has been extraordinary. Not lawyers only, and lawyers perhaps even less than others, accepted it as an authoritative revelation of the law. It performed for educated society in England much the same service as was rendered to the people of Rome by the publication of their previously unknown laws. It is more correct to regard it as a handbook of the law for laymen than as a legal treatise; and as the first and only book of the kind in England it has been received with somewhat indiscriminating reverence. It is certain that a vast amount of the constitutional sentiment of the country has been inspired by its pages. To this day Blackstone’s criticism of the English constitution would probably express the most profound political convictions of the majority of the English people. Long after it has ceased to be of much practical value as an authority in the courts, it remains the arbiter of all public discussions on the law or the constitution. On such occasions the Commentaries are apt to be construed as strictly as if they were a code. It is curious to observe how much importance is attached to the ipsissima verba of a writer who aimed more at presenting a picture intelligible to laymen than at recording the principles of the law with technical accuracy of detail.
See also the article [English Law].
BLACK VEIL, in the Roman Catholic Church, the symbol of the most complete renunciation of the world and adoption of a nun’s life. On the appointed day the nun goes through all the ritual of the marriage ceremony, after a solemn mass at which all the inmates of the convent assist. She is dressed in bridal white with wreath and veil, and receives a wedding-ring, as spouse of the Church. Afterwards she presides at a wedding-breakfast, at which a bride-cake is cut. She thus bids adieu to all her friends, and having previously taken the white veil, the betrothal, she now assumes the black, and for ever forswears the world and its pleasures. Her hair is cut short, and her bridal robes are exchanged for the sombre religious habit. Her wedding-ring, however, she continues to wear, and it is buried with her.
BLACKWATER, the name of a number of rivers and streams in England, Scotland and Ireland. The Blackwater in Essex, which rises near Saffron Walden, has a course of about 40 m. to the North Sea. The most important river of the name is in southern Ireland, rising in the hills on the borders of the counties Cork and Kerry, and flowing nearly due east for the greater part of its course, as far as Cappoquin, where it turns abruptly southward, and discharges through an estuary into Youghal Bay. The length of its valley (excluding the lesser windings of the river) is about 90 m., and the drainage area about 1300 sq. m. It is navigable only for a few miles above the mouth, but its salmon fisheries are both attractive to sportsmen and of considerable commercial value. The scenery of its banks is at many points very beautiful.
BLACKWATER FEVER, a disease occurring in tropical countries and elsewhere, which is often classed with malaria (q.v.). It is characterized by irregular febrile paroxysms, accompanied by rigors, bilious vomiting, jaundice and haemoglobinuria (Sambon). It has a wide geographical distribution, including tropical Africa, parts of Asia, the West Indies, the southern United States, and—in Europe—Greece, Sicily and Sardinia; but its range is not coextensive with malaria. Malarial parasites have occasionally been found in the blood. Some authorities believe it to be caused by the excessive use of quinine, taken to combat malaria. This theory has had the support of Koch, but it is not generally accepted. If it were correct, one would expect blackwater fever to be regularly prevalent in malarial countries and to be more or less coextensive with the use of quinine, which is not at all the case. It often resembles yellow fever, but the characteristic black vomit of yellow fever rarely occurs in blackwater fever, while the black urine from which the latter derives its name is equally rare in the former. According to the modern school of tropical parasitology, blackwater fever is neither a form of malaria nor produced by quinine, but a specific disease due to a protozoal parasite akin to that which causes the redwater fever of cattle.