Download or read book A Treatise on the Criminal Law as Now Administered in the United States, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint) written by Emlin McClain and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-11-23 with total page 762 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Treatise on the Criminal Law as Now Administered in the United States, Vol. 1 of 2 In the development of our common law the functions of the text-writer necessarily change from time to time under chang ing circumstances. When authorities are few he may be to some extent a prophet and an originator; but as the ground is more fully covered in detail by judicial decisions, he necessarily limits himself more strictly to an orderly arrangement and con cise statement of that which has been determined; and finally when the number of adjudications on the subject which he is considering has become so great as to cover practically all the important questions which are likely to arise, his function is to put all in order and preserve a proper perspective which shall make general and well-established principles stand out boldly among the bewildering details of complicated cases, without obliterating distinctions which may be of the greatest im portance when they are pertinent, but would mislead if mag nified into prominent dividing lines. It is futile to speak of one of these functions as greater than another. The business of the text-writer is to make the law as available as possible to the lawyer, and he may well allow the direction and extent of the exercise of his individual talents to depend upon the nature and circumstances of the particular question under discussion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.