Note 156 — Chapter II

Analysis of this decision shows that the main ground, upon which the court of last resort sustained the right of the applicant for admission to be admitted as a member of the society, was, that the provisions of the by-law in question were not specifically made applicable to a person applying for membership. The Court observed, pp. 192 et seq.: “The regulations embodied in the so-called code are admirably framed, and commend themselves to every reader, as tending to raise to a still higher elevation the character of the learned and honorable profession to which they were submitted for approval and adoption. They are not limited in their scope to the range of moral obligation, but embrace express rules of conduct, in personal, professional, and public relations. They are regulations in the various departments of morals and manners, of courtesy and etiquette, of delicacy and honor. They bind those who pledge themselves to their observance, but cannot be recognized in law, as conditions precedent to the exercise of an honorable profession, by learned, able, and upright men, who have not agreed to abide by them. The non-observance of such regulations may be made cause for exclusion or disfranchisement; but it must be either by the agreement of parties or by the exercise of the law-making power.