*175. The Form of the Law.*--Statute law takes invariably, of course, written form. The acts of Parliament are to be found in imposing printed collections, to which a substantial volume is added every year. Of the Common Law, however, there is no single or authoritative text. The Common Law grew up originally as unwritten law, and in a large measure it preserves still that character. The sources, however, from which knowledge of it must be drawn are mainly in writing or in print. The most important are (1) the decisions of the judges of the English courts (reported anonymously in Year Books from the reign of Edward I. to that of Henry VIII., and thereafter by lawyers reporting under their own names) which from at least the sixteenth century acquired weight as precedents and are nowadays all but absolutely decisive in analogous cases; (2) the decisions of courts of other countries in which there is administered a law derived from the English, such decisions being, of course, not binding, yet highly influential; and (3) certain "books of authority" written by learned lawyers (p. 169) of earlier times, such as Coke's seventeenth-century Commentary on Littleton's Tenures and Foster's eighteenth-century treatise on Crown Law. Some small branches of the Common Law have, indeed, been codified in the form of statutes, among them the law of partnership, that of sales, and that of bills of exchange. *176. The Rules of Equity.*--There is one other body of English law which requires mention, namely, the rules of equity. These rules had their origin in the administration of an extraordinary sort of justice by the king's chancellor in mediaeval times, a practice which arose from the sheer necessity of redressing grievances occasioned by the omissions or commissions of the regularly constituted tribunals. Interference on the part of the chancellor, which started as a matter of special favor in unusual cases, became gradually an established practice, and, contrary to the original intention, there was brought into existence a body of definite and separate rules of equity which by the seventeenth century acquired systematic character, and likewise a court of chancery in which these rules were at all times enforceable. Reports of equity cases became continuous, and lawyers of eminence began to specialize in equity procedure. The rules of equity thus developed partake largely of the nature of the Common Law, of which, indeed, they are to be considered, in effect, a supplement or appendix; and practically, though not theoretically, they prevail as against any provisions of the ordinary Common Law with which they may be inconsistent. Their general purpose is to afford means of safeguarding rights which exist in morals, but which the Common Law courts cannot or will not protect. Until 1875 they were administered by tribunals separate from the ordinary courts. Nowadays they are not separately administered, but they preserve, none the less, their