In the "Medical Record" for July 27, 1895, p. 141, this gentleman writes in defence of craniotomy: "The question is a legal one _per se_ against which any conflicting view is untenable. The subdivisions under which the common law takes consideration of craniotomy are answers in themselves to the conclusions quoted above, under the unfortunate necessity which demands the operation." Next he quotes the Ohio statute law, which, he remarks, was enacted in protection of physicians who are confronted with this dire necessity. He is answered with much ability and sound learning by Dr. Thomas J. Kearney, of New York, in the same "Medical Record" for August 31, 1895, p. 320, who writes: "Dr. G. bases his argument for the lawfulness of craniotomy in the teachings of common law, contending, at least implicitly, that it is unnecessary to seek farther the desired justification. However, the basis of common law, though broad, is certainly not broad enough for the consideration of such a question as the present one. His coolness rises to sublime heights, in thus assuming infallibility for common law, ignoring the very important fact that behind it there is another and higher law, whose imperative, to every one with a conscience, is ultimate. It evidently never occurs to him that some time could be profitably spent in research, with the view to discovering how often common-law maxims, seen to be at variance with the principles of morality, have been abrogated by statutory enactments. Now the maxims of common law relating to craniotomy, the statutes in conformity therewith, as well as Dr. G.'s arguments (some of them at least), rest on a basis of pure unmitigated expediency; and this is certainly in direct contravention of the teachings of all schools of moral science, even the utilitarian." Dr. Kearney's doctrine of the existence of a higher law, superior to all human law, is the doctrine that has been universally accepted, in all Christian lands at least, and is so to the present day. Froude explains it correctly when he writes: "Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws so far as we can read them, and either succeed and promote our welfare or fail and bring confusion and disaster, according as the legislator's insight has detected the true principle, or has been distorted by ignorance or selfishness" (Century Dict., "Law").