292 CHAPTER VII. ON THE COMBINED OPERATION OF THE NATURAL LAWS. HAVING now unfolded several of the natural laws, and their effects, and having also attempted to show that each is inflexible and independent in itself, and requires absolute obedience, (so that a man who shall neglect the physical law will suffer the physical punishment, although he may be very attentive to the moral law; that one who infringes the organic law will suffer organic punishment, although he may obey the physical law; and that a person who violates the moral law will suffer the moral punishment, although he should observe the other two;) I proceed to show the mutual relationship among these laws, and to adduce some instances of their joint opera tion. The defective administration of justice is a fertile source of human suffering in all countries; yet it is surprising how rude are the arrangements which are still in use, even in a free and enlightened country, for accomplishing this important end. A Scotch jury in a civil cause, even in Edinburgh, now frequently presents the following particulars for observation. It consists of twelve men, eight or ten of whom are collected from the country, within a distance of twenty or thirty miles to the west, south, and east of the capital. These individuals hold the plough, wield the hammer or hatchet, or carry on some other useful and respectable but laborious occupation, for six days in the week. Their muscular systems are in constant exer cise, and their brains are rarely called on for any great exertion. They are not accustomed to read, beyond the Bible and a weekly newspaper; they are still less prepared to think; and in general they live much in the open air. In this condition, they are placed in the jury-box at ten o'clock in the morning, after having travelled probably from seven to twenty-five miles to reach the court: counsel address long speeches to them; numerous witnesses are examined; and the cause is branched out into complicated details of fact, and wire-drawn distinctions in argument. The court is a small apartment, ill-ventilated, and in consequence is generally crowded and overheated. Without being allowed to take air, exercise, or food, they are confined to their seats till eight or ten in the evening, when they retire to return a verdict, by which they may dispose of thousands of pounds, and in which by law they must be unanimous. There is here a tissue of errors which could not exist for a day, if the natural laws were generally understood. First, The physical habits of such Jurors render their brains inactive, and their intellects in consequence incapable of attending to, and comprehending, complicated cases of fact and argument. Secondly, Their memories cannot retain the facts, while their skill in penmanship and literature is not sufficient to enable them to take notes; and their reflecting faculties are not capable of generalizing. Their education and daily pursuits, therefore, do not furnish them with principles of thinking, and power of mental action, sufficient to enable them to unravel the web of intricacies presented to their understandings. Thirdly, Protracted confinement in a close apartment, amidst vitiated air, operates injuriously on the most vivacious temperaments:-On such men it has a tenfold effect in lowering the action of the brain, and inducing mental incapacity, because it is diametrically opposed to their usual condition. Add to these considerations, that occasionally a jury trial lasts two, three, or even four days, each of which presents a repetition of the circumstances here described; and then the reader may judge whether such jurors are the fittest instruments, and in the best condition, for disposing of the fortunes of a people. who boast of their love of justice, and their admirable institutions for obtaining it. The influence of the physical condition of a human being on his mental capacity seems never to have entered the imaginations of our legislators as a matter of importance in the administration of justice. In the Circuit Courts of Scotland, the judges frequently sit for several days in succession in a crowded apartment, intently engaged in business, from ten o'clock in the morning till eight, ten, or twelve at night, without any proper inter mission or exercise. They go to their hotel at these late hours, dine, take wine, go to bed, and next morning resume their seats on the bench. Now, by the laws of their nature, which never cease to operate, the effect of this conduct is to impair the vigor of the moral and intellectual organs, and by constraint, want of exercise, and obstruction of the bodily functions, to irritate and exalt the activity of the animal organs; so that at the close of a circuit, the most excellent individual is physically deteriorated, and mentally incapacitated for the distribution of justice, compared with himself when he began his labors. It is accordingly matter of observation, that in proportion as a long and heavy session in circuit advances, irritability, impatience, and intellectual obscuration proceed par passu. The accused, therefore, who go to trial first, have a far higher chance of obtaining justice, than those who appear last on the roll. In these instances we observe infringements of the organic and moral laws, and the combined resultis, the maladministration of justice, of which the country so loudly complains. The proper remedies will be found in educating more effectually the people, in training them to the exercise of their mental faculties, and in observing the organic laws in the structure of court-rooms, and in the proceedings that take place within them. Another example of the combined operation of the natural laws is afforded by the great fires which occurred in Edinburgh in November 1824, when the Parliament Square and a part of the High Street were consumed. That calamity may be viewed in the following light:The Creator constituted England and Scotland, with such qualities, and placed them in such relationship, that the individuals of both kingdoms would be most happy in acting towards each other, and pursuing their separate vocations, under the supremacy of the moral sentiments. We have lived to see this practised, and to reap the rewards of it. But the ancestors of the two nations did not believe in this constitution of the world, and they preferred acting on the principles of the propensities; that is to say, they waged furious wars, and committed wasting devastations on each other's properties and lives. It is obvious from history, that the two nations were equally ferocious, and delighted reciprocally in each other's calamities. This was clearly a violent infringement of the moral law; and one effect of it was to render personal safety an object of paramount importance. The hill on which the Old Town of Edinburgh is built, was naturally surrounded by marshes, and presented a perpendicular front to the west, capable of being crowned with a castle. It was appropriated with avidity, and the metropolis of Scotland was founded there, obviously and undeniably under the inspiration purely of the animal faculties. It was fenced round, and ramparts built to exclude the fierce warriors who then inhabited the country lying south of the Tweed, and also to protect the inhabitants from the feudal banditti who infested their own soil. The space within the walls, however, was limited and narrow; the attractions to the spot were numerous; and to make the most of it, our ancestors erected the enormous masses of high, confused, and crowded buildings which now compose the High Street of this city, and the wynds, o alleys, on its two sides. These abodes, moreover, wer、 constructed to a great extent, of timber; for not only the joists and floors, but the partitions between the rooms, were made of massive wood. Our ancestors did all this in the perfect knowledge of the physical law, that wood ignited by fire not only is consumed itself, but envelopes in inevitable destruction every combustible object within its influence. Farther, their successors, even when necessity had ceased, persevered in the original error; and, in the perfect knowledge that every year added to the age of such fabrics increased their liability to burn, they not only allowed them to be occupied as shops filled with paper, spirits, and other highly combustible materials, but let off the upper floors for brothels, introducing thereby into the heart of this magazine of conflagration, the most reckless and immoral of mankind. The consummation was the two tremendous fires of November 1824, the one originating in a whisky-cellar, and the other in a garret-brothel, which consumed the whole Parliament Square and a part of the High Street, destroying property to the extent of many thousands of pounds, and spreading misery and ruin over a considerable part of the population of Edinburgh. Wonder, consternation, and awe, were forcibly excited at the vastness of this calamity; and in the sermons that were preached, and the dissertations that were written upon it, much was said of the inscrutable ways of Providence, that sent such visitations on the people, enveloping the innocent and the guilty in one common sweep of destruction. According to the exposition of the ways of Providence which I have ventured to give, there was nothing wonderful, nothing vengeful, nothing arbitrary, in the whole occurrence. The surprising thing was, that it did not take place generations before. The necessity for these fabrics originated in gross violation of the moral law; they were constructed in high contempt of the physical law, |