_Lord Brougham and Horne Tooke_ (Vol. ix., p. 398.).--I have not Lord
Brougham's book before me, but I have no doubt but that Q. has missed the
meaning of his lordship. The reference would probably be to Horne Tooke's
anticipation of the strange immoral reveries of Emerson and others, that
_truth_ is entirely subjective; because the word bears etymological
relation to "to trow," to think, or believe: and so _truth_ has no
objective existence, but is merely what a man troweth. If that be an
argument, Lord Brougham would say then the law of libel would be unjust,
merely because "libel" means primarily a little book; he might have added
that, according to Horne Tooke and Mr. Emerson, if a man had been killed by
falling against a post at Charing Cross, a jury might deny the fact of the
violent death, because "post" means a place for depositing letters, and he
had not been near St. Martin's-le-grand. The remark of Lord Brougham is not
as to a fact, but is a _reductio ad absurdum_.