Pete Daoust
Maxim (William C. Anderson's A Dictionary of Law, (1893), page 666): So called—because it's value is the highest and its authority the most reliable, and because it is accepted by all persons at the very highest.
2. The principles and axioms of law, which are general propositions flowing from abstracted reason, and not accommodated to times or men, are wisely deposited in the breasts of the judges to be applied to such facts as come properly before them.
3. When a principle has been so long practiced and so universally acknowledged as to become a maxim, it is obligatory as part of the law.
Printed copy · Anthology Volume 5, page 632
