our course, and to lay before you the
teachings of science on this subject, together with the principles on
which they are based. For the present I will confine myself to the point
we are treating just now, namely, the existence of a higher law than
that of human tribunals, the superiority of the claims of natural to
those of legal justice. Some might think, at first sight, that this
needs no proof. In fact we are all convinced that human laws are often
unjust, or, at least, very imperfect, and therefore they cannot be the
ultimate test or fixed standard of right and wrong; yet the main
argument advanced by one of the advocates of craniotomy rests upon the
denial of a higher law, and the assertion of the authority of human
tribunals as final in such matters.

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 th