Legal doctrine and social progress Author:Frank Parsons Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: in FIXED LAW IS BUT THE CBYSTALLIZATIONS OP ANCIENT GBOWTHS It is to democracy therefore that we must look for the ideal law; it is to the nearest approach... more »es to democracy that we must go for the highest developments of the law, the closest approximations to and most advanced movements toward a true, well-balanced, thoroughly developed system. International law. Our law is divided into Internal or Domestic law and International law. International law consists of the rules and principles which through the express or tacit agreement of nations have come to govern their relations with each other. It is to be found in treaties, the usages of nations, opinions of jurists, precedents, and judgments of courts and boards of arbitration. Domestic law. Internal or Domestic law is that which is created or accepted by our governing authorities to control within our own territory. It is divided into the written and the unwritten law. The written law consists ofconstitutions, statutes and ordinances. The unwritten law consists of the common law and equity. The common law. The common law consists of the principles and usages ascertained and established by the ancient English courts and their modern successors in English speaking countries, as just and proper to be enforced in the cases that have come before them, and are embodied in their decisions which are preserved in the public records and the law reports, and digested by writers of approved authority. The principles of justice and the fair usages of business and society as ascertained by the courts, constitute the substance of the common law; and the recorded decisions are the evidence. Equity. Equity is the correction of that wherein the law, by reason of its universality or incomplete development, is deficient. Equity has...« less