is satisfied that they have affected the result. Legislation has sometimes been necessary to free us from the old fetters. Sometimes the conservatism of judges has threatened for an interval to rob the legislation of its efficacy.[1] This danger was disclosed in the attitude of the courts toward the reforms embodied in codes of practice, in the days when they were first enacted.[2] Precedents established in those times exert an unhappy influence even now. None the less, the tendency today is in the direction of a growing liberalism. The new spirit has made its way gradually; and its progress, unnoticed step by step, is visible in retrospect as we look back upon the distance traversed. The old forms remain, but they are filled with a new content. We are getting away from what Ebrlich calls "die spielerische und die mathematische Entscheidung,"[3] the conception of a lawsuit either as a mathematical prob-
- ↑ Kelso v. Ellis, 224 N. Y. 528, 536, 537; California Packing Co. v. Kelly S. & D. Co., 228 N. Y. 49.
- ↑ Pound, "Common Law and Legislation," 21 Harvard L. R. 383, 387.
- ↑ Ehrlich, "Die juristische Logik," p. 295; cf. pp. 294, 296.
