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 rise to them.  All occasions do not arise at once:  now a particular species of Indians appears; hereafter another species of Indians may arise.  A statute can seldom take in all cases.  Therefore the Common Law, that works itself pure by rules drawn from the fountain of justice, is for this reason superior to an act of Parliament."[55]

From the period of this great judgment to the trial of Warren Hastings, Esquire, the law has gone on continually working itself pure (to use Lord Mansfield’s expression) by rules drawn from the fountain of justice.  “General rules,” said the same person, when he sat upon the bench, “are wisely established for attaining justice with ease, certainty, and dispatch; but the great end of them being to do justice, the Court will see that it be really obtained.  The courts have been more liberal of late years in their determinations, and have more endeavored to attend to the real justice of the case than formerly.”  On another occasion, of a proposition for setting aside a verdict, he said, “This seems to be the true way to come at justice, and what we therefore ought to do; for the true text is, Boni judicis est ampliare justitiam (not jurisdictionem, as has been often cited)."[56] In conformity to this principle, the supposed rules of evidence have, in late times and judgments, instead of being drawn to a greater degree of strictness, been greatly relaxed.

“All evidence is according to the subject-matter to which it is applied. There is a great deal of difference between length of time that operates as a bar to a claim and that which is used only by way of evidence.  Length of time used merely by way of evidence may be left to the consideration of the jury, to be credited or not, or to draw their inferences one way or the other, according to circumstances. I do not know an instance in which proof may not be supplied."[57] In all cases of evidence Lord Mansfield’s maxim was, to lean to admissibility, leaving the objections which were made to competency to go to credit, and to be weighed in the minds of the jury after they had heard it.[58] In objections to wills, and to the testimony of witnesses to them, he thought “it clear that the Judges ought to lean against objections to the formality."[59]