Excerpt from Psychology Applied to Legal Evidence and Other Constructions of Law: Second Edition Revised and Re-Written in Parts

This work does not claim to be an original treatise on either Psychology or Law. The author has merely aimed at applying the conclusions of the former to legal evidence and other doctrines and constructions of legal writers. As psychologists are not agreed on every point, as happens in most sciences, it will no doubt be possible to find conflicting views on psychological subjects quoted in different parts of this book without any comment by the writer. It must, therefore, be explained here that the author did not consider it necessary, for the purposes of a work like the present, to reconcile such contradictions, and that though in most instances he has chosen to follow the view of some one particular writer, it must not on that account be assumed that he was necessarily ignorant of the existence of other theories. Nor again has he felt himself debarred from occasionally quoting alternative doctrines in different passages, in a few instances in which their application appeared advantageous and in which he was not'prepared to hold that either conclusion was necessarily wrong.

It is also desired to anticipate a condemnation which he will possibly incur at the hands of some readers. It is not unlikely that it will appear to some that it is unseem ly on the part of one whose legal qualifications are so slight to criticise the writings of accepted authorities like Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir James Stephen, Mr. J. D. Mayne and others, in the free way which the author has done inthis volume. A similar resentment may also be felt at the manner in which some of the decisions of the Judges in England and the High Courts in India have been hand led.

It appears, however, to the writer that such an atti tude on the part of his readers would be founded on a mis apprehension. No claim is either tacitly or openly made in this book to excel such writers or judges in knowledge of the theory or practice of law, as the law is at present understood. The work which is now put forward contains rather a plea for the adoption of a different idea of the sphere of law and a different interpretation of legal duties from those which prevail. For any new idea to win accept-3 ance it is necessary to show that there is some fault in the existing system which it seeks to alter, or at least that the recognized theories and doctrines are capable of improve ment. But this cannot be done without a resort to cri ticism, and it is clear that if every view of a legal authority or past decision of a High Court Judge is to be regarded as above challenge, the law must remain immutable for ever. As, however, the circumstances of human life change and knowledge increases, the law, unless it also advances with the times, must rapidly become useless for practical pur poses, or if its antiquated notions are attempted to be eu forced in its changed surroundings, flagrant injustice will evidently result.

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