oned.

BUT though this is the most likely foundation of this collection of
maxims and customs, yet the maxims and customs, so collected, are of
higher antiquity than memory or history can reach: nothing being more
difficult than to ascertain the precise beginning and first spring of
an antient and long established custom. Whence it is that in our law
the goodness of a custom depends upon it's having been used time out
of mind; or, in the solemnity of our legal phrase, time whereof the
memory of man runneth not to the contrary. This it is that gives it
it's weight and authority; and of this nature are the maxims and
customs which compose the common law, or _lex non scripta_, of this
kingdom.

THIS unwritten, or common, law is properly distinguishable into three
kinds: 1. General customs; which are the universal rule of the whole
kingdom, and form the common law, in it's stricter and more usual
signification. 2. Particular customs; which for the most part affect
only the inhabitants of particular districts. 3. Certain particular
laws; which by custom are adopted and used by some particular courts,
of pretty general and extensive jurisdiction.

I. AS to general customs, or the common law, properly so called; this
is that law, by which proceedings and determinations in the king's
ordinary courts of justice are guided and directed. This, for the most
part, settles the course in which lands descend by inheritance; the
manner and form of acquiring and transferring property; the
solemnities and obligation of contracts; the rules of expounding
wills, deeds, and acts of parliament; the respective remedies of civil
injuries; the several species of temporal offences, with the manner
and degree of punishment; and an infinite number of minuter
particulars, which diffuse themselves as extensively as the ordinary
distribution of common justice requires. Thus, for example, that there
shall be four superior courts of record, the chancery, the king's
bench, the common pleas, and the exchequer;--that the eldest son alone
is heir to his ancestor;--that property may be acquired and
transferred by writing;--that a deed is of no validity unless
sealed;--that wills shall be construed more favorably, and deeds more
strictly;--that money lent upon bond is recoverable by action of
debt;--that breaking the public peace is an offence, and punishable by
fine and imprisonment;--all these are doctrines that are not set down
in any written statute o