but have you read the pleadings and arguments of the
counsel, so as to know accurately the points raised for the
consideration of those who were to decide? To know the offence
charged and the judgment pronounced may suffice in some cases for
an opinion by a competent person, whether the one warranted the
other; but more is required to warrant the imputation of
inconsistency, partiality, or indirect motives. He who takes this
on himself should know further how the pleadings and the arguments
presented the case for judgment, and made this or that particular
relevant in the discussion. Every one at all familiar with this
matter knows that a judgment not uncommonly fails to reflect the
private opinion of the judge on the whole of a great point,
because the issues of law or fact actually brought before him, and
which alone he was bound to decide, did not bring this before him.
And this rule, always binding, is, of course, never more so than
in regard to a Court of Final Appeal, which should be careful not
to conclude more than is regularly before it. Let me add that a
just and considerate person will wholly disregard the gossip which
flies about in regard to cases exciting much interest; passing
words in the course of an argument, forgotten when the judgment
comes to be considered, are too often caught up, as having guided
the final determination.

Such words are a just rebuke to much of the inconsiderate talk which
follows on any public act which touches the feelings, perhaps the
highest and purest feelings of men with deep convictions. Perhaps Mr.
Liddon's words were unguarded ones. But at the same time it is
necessary to state without disguise what is the truth in this matter.
It is necessary for the sake of justice and historical truth. The Court
of Final Appeal is not like other courts. It is not a pure and simple
court of law, though it is composed of great lawyers. It is doubtless a
court where their high training and high professional honour come in,
as they do elsewhere. But great lawyers are men, partisans and
politicians, statesmen, if you like; and this is a court where they are
not precluded, in the same degree as they are in the regular courts by
the habits and prescriptions of the place, from thinking of what comes
before them in its relation to public affairs. It is no mere invention
of disappointed partisans, it is no idle ch