Law Commons^™

A Recent History Of English Law, Arthur Lyon Cross

Michigan Law Review

In 1607, if his own word can be behaved, "tough old Sir Edward Coke," that monster of legal learning, told King James I "that causes which concern the life, or inheritance, or goods, or fortunes of his subjects are not to be decided by natural reason, but by the artificial reason and judgment of the law, which requires long study and experience before a man can attain to the cognizance of it." The celebrated Sir John Fortesque, when pressed on one occasion in the reign of Henry VI by the legal absurdity of a distinction he was laying down as …