It calls attention from
your main idea. It is a fault, too, which is well-nigh universal. I
advise every young lawyer, as a practise in accurate thought, to
demonstrate a theorem of geometry every morning.
There is no such remorseless logic as that of logarithms. It will
produce a habit of definiteness, directness, and concentration
invaluable to you. The young gallants of a century ago used to
practise fencing for an hour each morning. Why should not you do the
same thing in intellectual fencing--you, the devotee of the noblest
swordsmanship known to man, the swordsmanship of the law?
Do not waste too much time quoting precedents to a court; it produces
weariness rather than conviction on the part of the judge, who himself
is a daily maker of decisions and knows their value. He knows the
stifling mass of precedents, and sighs under them. It is rare that
more than two cases should be cited in oral argument on any given
point. Those cases ought to be the most controlling you can find--not
necessarily the latest. They should be cases decided upon reason
rather than upon authority. Your true judge likes to syllogize.
Do not, however, go into a court without having thoroughly reviewed
and mastered all the precedents bearing on every phase of your
proposition.
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