Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/87

§. 3. breach of his oath and the law. For herein there is nothing repugnant to natural jutice; though the reaon of it, drawn from the feodal law, may not be quite obvious to every body. And therefore, on account of a uppoed hardhip upon the half brother, a modern judge might wih it had been otherwie ettled; yet it is not in his power to alter it. But if any court were now to determine, that an elder brother of the half blood might enter upon and eie any lands that were purchaed by his younger brother, no ubequent judges would cruple to declare that uch prior determination was unjut, was unreaonable, and therefore was not law. So that the law, and the opinion of the judge are not always convertible terms, or one and the ame thing; ince it ometimes may happen that the judge may mitake the law. Upon the whole however, we may take it as a general rule, “that the deciions of courts of jutice are the evidence of what is common law:” in the ame manner as, in the civil law, what the emperor had once determined was to erve for a guide for the future.

deciions therefore of courts are held in the highet regard, and are not only preerved as authentic records in the treauries of the everal courts, but are handed out to public view in the numerous volumes of reports which furnih the lawyer’s library. Thee reports are hitories of the everal caes, with a hort ummary of the proceedings, which are preerved at large in the record; the arguments on both ides; and the reaons the court gave for it’s judgment; taken down in hort notes by perons preent at the determination. And thee erve as indexes to, and alo to explain, the records; which always, in matters of conequence and nicety, the judges direct to be earched. The reports are extant in a regular eries from the reign of king Edward the econd incluive; and from his time to that of Henry the