LITERARY QUOTATIONS RELATING TO LAW — PART 6 [OWN COMPILATIONS] Edgar Allan Poe, Quotations, Literature, Law, Literature and Law, Literary Quotations, Legal Quotations, Literary Legal Quotations EDGAR ALLAN POE The analytical power should not be confounded with ample ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive or combining power, by which ingenuity is usually manifested, and to which the phrenologists (I believe erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those whose intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted general observation among writers on morals. Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly ambiguous. It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic — The Murders in the Rue Morgue Truth is not always in the well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found — The Murders in the Rue Morgue Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities—that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration — The Murders in the Rue Morgue They could picture to their imaginations a mode—many modes—and a motive—many motives; and because it was not impossible that either of these numerous modes and motives could have been the actual one, they have taken it for granted that one of them must. But the case with which these valuable fancies were entertained, and the very plausibility which each assumed, should have been understood as indicative rather of the difficulties than of the facilities which must attend elucidation. I have before observed that it is by prominences above the plane of the ordinary, that reason feels her way, if at all, in her search for the true, and that the proper question in cases such as this, is not so much ‘what has occurred?’ as ‘what has occurred that has never occurred before?’ — The Mystery of Marie Roget (A Sequel to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’) We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation—to make a point—than to further the cause of truth. The latter end is only pursued when it seems coincident with the former. The print which merely falls in with ordinary opinion (however well founded this opinion may be) earns for itself no credit with the mob. The mass of the people regard as profound only him who suggests pungent contradictions of the general idea. In the ratiocination, not less than in the literature, it was the epigram which is the most immediately and the most universally appreciated. In both, it is of the lowest order of merit — The Mystery of Marie Roget (A Sequel to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’) He has thought it sagacious to echo the small talk of lawyers, who, for the most part, content themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected as evidence by the court, is the best of evidence to the intellect. For the court, guiding itself by the in general principles of evidence—the recognized and booked principles—is averse from swerving at particular instances. And this steadfast adherence to principle, with rigorous disregard of the conflicting exception, is a sure of attaining the maximum of attainable truth, in any long sequence of time. The practice, in mass, is therefore philosophical; but it is not the less certain that it engenders vast individual error. [“A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent its being unfolded according to its objects; and he who arranges topics in reference to their causes, will cease to value them according to the results. Thus the jurisprudence of every nation will show that, when law becomes a science and a system, it ceases to be justice. The errors into which a blind devotion to principles of classification has led the common law, will be seen by observing how often the legislature has been obliged to come forward to restore the equity its scheme had lost.”— Landor] (note 16 to above passage) — The Mystery of Marie Roget (A Sequel to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’) Nothing is more vague than impressions of individual identity. Each man recognizes his neighbor, yet there are few instances in which any one is prepared to give a reason for his recognition— The Mystery of Marie Roget (A Sequel to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’) In that which I now propose, we will discard the interior points of the tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its outskirts. Not the least usual error, in investigations such as this, is the limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral or circumstantial events. It is the malpractice of the courts to confine evidence and discussion to the bounds of apparent relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant. It is through the spirit of this principle, if not precisely through its letter, that modern science has resolved to calculate upon the unforeseen — The Mystery of Marie Roget (A Sequel to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’) But perhaps you do not comprehend me. The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to collateral, or incidental, accidental events we are indebted for the most numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it has at length become necessary, in any prospective view of improvement, to make not only large, but the largest allowances for inventions that shall arise by chance, and quite out of the range of ordinary expectation. It is no longer philosophical to base, upon what has been a vision of what is to be. Accident is admitted as a portion of the substructure. We make chance a matter of absolute calculation. We subject the unlooked for and unimagined, to the mathematical formulae of the schools — The Mystery of Marie Roget (A Sequel to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’)
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 23:35:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015