This is a case that ought to be looked upon in that light; and
I take it that considering evidence in this way [viz. according to
natural justice] _is agreeable to the genius of the law of England_."
The sentiments of Murray, then Solicitor-General, afterwards Lord
Mansfield, are of no small weight in themselves, and they are authority
by being judicially adopted. His ideas go to the growing melioration of
the law, by making its liberality keep pace with the demands of justice
and the actual concerns of the world: not restricting the infinitely
diversified occasions of men and the rules of natural justice within
artificial circumscriptions, but conforming our jurisprudence to the
growth of our commerce and of our empire. This enlargement of our
concerns he appears, in the year 1744, almost to have foreseen, and he
lived to behold it. "The arguments on the other side," said that great
light of the law, (that is, arguments against admitting the testimony in
question from the novelty of the case,) "prove nothing. Does it follow
from thence, that no witnesses can be examined in a case that never
specifically existed before, or that an action cannot be brought in a
case that never happened before? _Reason_ (being stated to be the first
ground of all laws by the author of the book called 'Doctor and
Student') must determine the case.
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