I know no more
unsatisfactory class of witness. The plain and simple question is, has
Sir Philip Dass made any real addition to existing knowledge and methods
in this matter or has he not? We don't want to know whether they were
large or small additions nor what the consequences of your admission may
be. That you will leave to us.'
Holsten was silent.
'Surely?' said the judge, almost pityingly.
'No, he hasn't,' said Holsten, perceiving that for once in his life he
must disregard infinitesimals.
'Ah!' said the judge, 'now why couldn't you say that when counsel put
the question? . . .'
An entry in Holsten's diary-autobiography, dated five days later, runs:
'Still amazed. The law is the most dangerous thing in this country. It
is hundreds of years old. It hasn't an idea. The oldest of old bottles
and this new wine, the most explosive wine. Something will overtake
them.'
Section 4
There was a certain truth in Holsten's assertion that the law was
'hundreds of years old.' It was, in relation to current thought and
widely accepted ideas, an archaic thing. While almost all the material
and methods of life had been changing rapidly and were now changing
still more rapidly, the law-courts and the legislatures of the world
were struggling desperately to meet modern demands with devices and
procedures, conceptions of rights and property and authority and
obligation that dated from the rude compromises of relatively barbaric
times.
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