The Sanctity of Contracts in English Law - College of Social ...

Conclusions 71sections of the edifice can be pulled down by onedecision after another, until whole sections have to bediscarded and the whole edifice may appear to becomeobsolete or threatened with destruction.Morris L.J. in his recent address to the HoldsworthClub on " Law and Public Opinion " 6 has strikinglyand most aptly described an aspect of the same featurefrom a different angle. " The practising lawyer," heobserves, " and the judge in office must ... at alltimes remember that though the history of the lawfascinates and though the theories and the principlesof legal philosophy are rich in interest, the interestof the litigant is in his own case."All this leads me to the view that we must at alltimes keep in mind the question whether the time isnot fast approaching when the whole structure ofcontract law, with its preconceived ideas and nineteenth-centurydoctrines, has not become so rigid andstatic that it cannot be expected to bear on all frontsthe strains and stresses of modern economic and socialpressures.As I have already indicated, there is a considerablemeasure of stability and fixity about legal machinerywhen it operates to determine human relationships.Indeed this has in the past been one of the greatassets of the common law. It has served, amongother purposes, to create security and calculabilityin the life of the community. As Judge Cardozo hasemphasised, 7 " What has once been settled by a« At p. 3.7 In Paradoxes of Legal Science, pp. 29-30.