と District of Maryland, to wit: BE IT REMEMBERED, That on this eighteenth day of November, in the fortieth year of the Independence of the United States of America, David Hoffman, of the said SEAL **district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words and figures following, to wit: ********* "A Course of Legal Study respectfully addressed to the Students of Law in the United "States, by David Hoffman, Professor of Law in the University of Maryland. "Method is the light and life of study; without it the simplest subject is dark, and with it "the most abstruse is easy, and even pleasing. "Si quid novisti rectius istis, "Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.'....Hor." In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;" and also to the act, entitled, "An act supplementary to the act, entitled, 'An act for the encouragement of learning; by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and propietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned," and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints," PHILIP MOORE, Clerk of the District of Maryland. INTRODUCTION. "The noblest employment of Man, is to assist Man."...Sophocles. IN the various pursuits of man throughout life, method appears no less important than industry. If the latter bring us with certainty to the contemplated end, the former facilitates our progress, designates the paths which are unincumbered, and leads us directly, and without fatigue, to the object of pursuit. Method places in our hands a torch and clue which guide us through the surest and easiest ways: it agreeably impresses the mind with the most distinct and lively pictures of every thing worthy of notice, and at last brings us to the end of our journey, improved, invigorated, and delighted. In the moral, as well as the natural world, we perceive that Infinite Intelligence undeviatingly acts upon the principle of order, which is nothing more than the pursuit of that plan or system which attains a desired end, by the most direct path; and in all the endeavours of man, either to acquire or use knowledge, we find his success to be strictly proportioned to the regularity and method by which he has been directed; and he who has been uniformly the most methodical, though he may not have seen, heard, read, and reflected more than another, has certainly acquired more, both in extent and quality. Method, like the minute division of labour, greatly increases its productive powers; but with this superadded advantage, that whilst the division of labour enfeebles the mind, method on the contrary strengthens and expands it, by imparting the choicest and most nutritious food, and this in such time, place, quantity, and kind as are, respectively, the most suitable. In the Arts and Sciences, as lord Bacon emphatically expresses himself, it is the architecture; in argument, it may be compared to the "discipline of modern nations; it corrects in some measure the inequalities of controversial dexterity, and levels, on the intellectual field, the giant and the dwarf."* In reading, as lord Bolingbroke says, "we may acquire by it less learning, but more knowledge; and as this is collected *Mack. Vin. Gall. Intro. |