The good judge continually modifies the laws of his country to the advantage of mankind. He leaves bad statutes, which aim at or would promote injustice, to sleep till themselves become obsolete, or parries their insidious thrusts at humanity; he selects good statutes which enact natural Justice into positive law; and mixes his own fresh instincts of humanity with the traditional institutions of the age. All this his official function requires of him--for his oath to keep and administer the laws binds him to look to the Purpose of Law--which is the Eternal Justice of God,--as well as to each special statute. Besides, after the Jury declares a man guilty, the Judge has the power to fix the quantity and sometimes the quality of his punishment. And the discretion of a great noble man will advance humanity. In this way a good Judge may do a great service to mankind, and correct the mistakes, or repel the injustice of the ultimate makers and appliers of law, and supply their defects. Thus in England those eminent Judges, Hale, Somers, Hobart, Holt, Camden, Mansfield, and Brougham, have done large service to mankind. Each had his personal and official faults, some of them great and glaring faults of both kinds, but each in his way helped enact natural Justice into positive law, and so to promote the only legitimate Purpose of human legislation, securing Natural Rights to all men. To such Judges mankind owes a quite considerable debt. But in America the Judge has an additional function; he is to determine the Constitutionality of a law. For while the British King and Parliament claim to be legislatively omnipotent, supreme, the Ultimate human source of law, the Living Constitution of the realm, and therefore themselves the only Norm of law,--howsoever ill-founded the claim may be,--in America it is the People, not their elected servants, who are the Ultimate human source of law, the Supreme Legislative power. Accordingly the People have prepared a written Constitution, a Power of Attorney authorizing their servants to do certain matters and things relating to the government of the nation. This constitution is the human Norm of law for all the servants of the people. So in administering law the Judge is to ask, Is the statute constitutional? does it square with the Norm of law which the People have laid down; or have the legislative servants exceeded their Power of Attorney, and done matters and things which they were not empowered to do? In deciding this question, the Judge is to consider not merely the Provisional Means which the Constitution designates, but also the Ultimate Purpose thereof, the Justice and Liberty which, as its preamble declares, it expressly aims at, and which are also the ideal End of all sound legislation. There is no country in the world where a great man has so noble a place and opportunity to serve mankind as in America.