determine as the law is, without regard to the inequitableness or
inconveniency: these defects, if they happen in the law, can only be
remedied by Parliament. But where the law is doubtful and not clear, the
Judges ought to interpret the law to be as is most consonant to equity,
and what is least inconvenient.'"

These principles of equity, convenience, and natural reason Lord
Chief-Justice Lee considered in the same ruling light, not only as
guides in matter of interpretation concerning law in general, but in
particular as controllers of the whole law of evidence, which, being
artificial, and made for convenience, is to be governed by that
convenience for which it is made, and is to be wholly subservient to the
stable principles of substantial justice, "I do apprehend," said that
Chief-Justice, "that the rules of evidence are to be considered as
_artificial_ rules, framed by men for _convenience in courts of
justice_. This is a case that ought to be looked upon in that light; and
I take it that considering evidence in this way [viz. according to
natural justice] _is agreeable to the genius of the law of England_."

The sentiments of Murray, then Solicitor-General, afterwards Lord
Mansfield, are of no small weight in themselves, and they are authority
by being judicially adopted. His ideas go to the growing melioration of
the law, by making its liberality keep pace with the demands of justice
and the actual concerns of the world: not restricting the infinitely
diversified occasions of men and the rules of natural justice within
artificial circumscriptions, but conforming our jurisprudence to the
growth of our commerce and of our empire. This enlargement of our
concerns he appears, in the year 1744, almost to have foreseen, and he
lived to behold it. "The arguments on the other side," said that great
light of the law, (that is, arguments against admitting the testimony in
question from the novelty of the case,) "prove nothing. Does it follow
from thence, that no witnesses can be examined in a case that never
specifically existed before, or that an action cannot be brought in a
case that never happened before? _Reason_ (being stated to be the first
ground of all laws by the author of the book called 'Doctor and
Student') must determine the case. Therefore the only question is,
Whether, _upon principles of reason, justice, and convenience_, this
witness be admissible? Cases in law depend upon the _occasions_ which
gave ri