time or eternity; experienced and honest guides rarely venture to predict. Was there ever such fatuity as that of a nation of men madly bent on building up such labyrinths as these, for no other purpose than that of exposing all their rights of reputation, property, liberty, and life, to the hazards of being lost in them, instead of being content to live in the light of the open day of their own understandings? What honest, unsophisticated man ever found himself involved in a lawsuit, that he did not desire, of all things, that his cause might be judged of on principles of natural justice, as those principles were understood by plain men like himself? He would then feel that he could foresee the result. These plain men are the men who pay the taxes, and support the government. Why should they not have such an administration of justice as they desire, and can understand? If the jurors were to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, there would be something like certainty in the administration of justice, and in the popular knowledge of the law, and men would govern themselves accordingly. There would be something like certainty, because every man has himself something like definite and clear opinions, and also knows something of the opinions of his neighbors, on matters of justice. And he would know that no statute, unless it were so clearly just as to command the unanimous assent of twelve men, who should be taken at random from the whole community, could be enforced so as to take from him his reputation, property, liberty, or life. What greater certainty can men require or need, as to the laws under which they are to live? If a statute were enacted by a legislature, a man, in order to know what was its true interpretation, whether it were constitutional, and whether it would be enforced, would not be under the necessity of waiting for years until some suit had arisen and been carried through all the stages of judicial proceeding, to a final decision. He would need only to use his own reason as to its meaning and its justice, and then talk with his neighbors on the same points. Unless he found them nearly unanimous in their interpretation and approbation of it, he would conclude that juries would not unite in enforcing it, and that it would consequently be a dead letter. And he would be safe in coming to this conclusion. There would be something like certainty in the administration of justice, and in the popular knowledge of the law, for the further reason that there would be little legislation, and men's rights would be left to stand almost solely upon the law of nature, or what was once called in England "the _common law_," (before so much legislation and usurpation had become incorporated into the common law,)--in other words, upon the principles of natural justice. Of the certainty of this law of nature, or the ancient English common law, I may be excused for repeating here what I have said on another occasion.