The time makes no difference in the reason of the thing. - John Eardley Wilmot

A course of precedents and judicial proceedings in Courts of justice make the law: it would be endless to cite cases upon it. A course of practice for a few years has been held to controul an Act of Parliament.

I have always thought that formerly there was too confined a way of thinking in the Judges of the common law Courts, and that Courts of equity have risen by the Judges not properly applying the principles of the common law, being too narrowly governed by old cases and maxims, which have too much prevented the public from having the benefit of the common law.

These laws must be construed according to the intention of them: and the circumstances of things at the time of enacting them ought to be taken into consideration.