The Oldest Social Science? The Epistemic Properties of the Common Law Tradition
Is not a worthie Professor of Law a starr in the firmament of the Common-wealth? Is he not lux a tenebris wheresoever he dwelleth? Is not his house . . . an Oracle not only to a Towne or Citty, but to a whole country round about him?' ORentimes too, to aggravate the rest, concur many other inconveniences, unthankful friends, decayed friends, bad neighbours, negligent servants [ . . . ] thievish slaves, sly cunning varlets, they break through a thousand bolts, they steal, they eat up, they take the tit-bits; casualties, taxes, mulcts, chargeable offices, vain expenses, entertainments, loss of stock, enmities, emulations, frequent invitations, losses, suretyship, sickness, death of friends, and that which is the gulf of all, improvidence, ill husbandry, disorder and confusion, by which means they are drenched on a sudden in their estates, and at unawares precipitated insensibly into an inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent, and melancholy itself.2