“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass — a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.”
Charles Dickens
“Oliver Twist”
I think that quotation is from The Pickwick Papers, not from Oliver Twist.
No, you are right and I’m wrong; that was from Oliver Twist. I just looked it up, and should have done so before posting. Too long since I read any Dickens, I guess, that and trusting my memory (increasingly often a mistake).