Page "Common law" Paragraph 77

Reliance on old maxims and rigid adherence to precedent, no matter how old or ill-considered, was under full attack by the late 19th century.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in his famous article, " The Path of the Law ", commented, " It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.

It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.

" Justice Holmes noted that study of maxims might be sufficient for " the man of the present ," but " the man of the future is the man of statistics and the master of economics.

" In an 1880 lecture at Harvard, he wrote: