object of his indignation; we should let his wrath take its
course; we should listen with patience, with neutrality, perhaps with
secret satisfaction at his attack. What, after all, is to be said in
answer to the reproach which every simple-minded man must make--not
against this or that member of the profession, because an individual is
always considered blameless who only adopts the customs of his
country--but against the whole profession, the principle and theory of its
action, this arguing for A or B, for Yes or No, as they first come,
without the least regard for justice or for truth?

It is well known what Paley has said in its defence. "There are
falsehoods," he writes in his chapter on Lies, "which are not lies, that
is, which are not criminal; as, 1. when no one is deceived--which is the
case in parables, fables, novels, jests, tales to create mirth, ludicrous
embellishments of a story, where the declared design of the speaker is not
to inform but to divert; compliments in the subscription of a letter, a
servant's denying his master, a prisoner pleading not guilty, _and an
advocate asserting the justice, or his belief of the justice, of his
client's cause_. In such instances no confidence is destroyed, because
none was reposed; no promise to speak the truth is violated, because none
was given or understood to be given."

Ay, but the advocate _does_ strive to be believed--does labour to deceive.
His very object is to gain credit for his assertion, whether contrary or
not to his sense of truth. He stands there, it is true, in the character
of advocate, subject to whatever suspicion you may attach to that
character; but all his ability is employed to overcome that suspicion, and
compel you to credit him. "Confidence is not reposed;" not readily it may
be; he labours, therefore, the more assiduously to win it. How can he
avail himself of the plea here offered for him? How can he place himself
in the sane category with the portly merchant who signs himself "your
humble servant," and would indeed be strangely surprised if you took him
at his word? Or with the obedient valet who denies his master with the
customary, "not at home?" No man uses language with a more evident desire
to obtain our conviction than the advocate.

There is another so-called _theory_ of advocacy, which we will state in
the words of Bishop Warburton. In his _Divine Legation_, vol. i. p. 397,
he says, speaking of Cicero--"As an orator, he was an