Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1915 — PROBLEMS OF COMMON LAW [ARTICLE]

PROBLEMS OF COMMON LAW

Times Have Changed Bince the Great Authoritlee Wrote Learnedly on the Subject. In the early history of the common law, when recorded precedents were far le'ss numerous than they are today and when learned glosses and commentaries were few, it was mqra nearly possible for an industrious lawyer to know them all. Just as Dr. Samuel Johnson ventured to write a dictionary of the English language out of his own head, so did William Blackstone and James Kent attempt to state the entire common law. He would be a bold and an 111-advised man who would attempt to do either today. In their day it was possible to regard the opinion of a judge in a litigated case as the last word upon the subject of his decision. So, also, the opinions of the few learned commentators, like Coke and Blackstone and Kent, were regarded with much greater veneration than are the opinions of tl\eir modern successors. The modern judges and writers are often compared much to their disadvantage with these-venerable masters of the past. But this is far from being wholly due to the superior learning and ability of the ancients; it is due in part to the greater simplicity of their problem, and in part to their lack of competitors on the top rounds of the ladder.