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660 ascertaining what is the true rule on the particular subject in another and later year. For example, how would it do to cite the decision in the Dred Scott case, which was absolutely sound law at the time it was rendered, in one of the cases arising in the year 1896 between a railway company and the Knights of Labor? We see that it is for the most part idle in discussions of this subject today to cite as authority, or even by way of argument, the decisions of the courts of half a century ago, or of even fifteen or a dozen years ago. What was absolutely right then may be absolutely wrong now.

This notion is well expressed by Lord Watson, in a case decided, only about a year ago, in the House of Lords:

Conceding, or better realizing, this inherently fluctuating character or quality of public policy, we see that the enactment of statutes to declare or define it must of necessity be a dangerous business, because such statutes, however accurately they reflect the public policy of the moment of their enactment, must almost immediately begin to be wrong. The Common Law, reposing, according to the legal fiction, in the bosom of the court, is flexible, and can change or be changed, as we have seen,