Excerpt from Leading Cases Upon the Law of Torts A word 'of caution may be addressed to law students in regard to the study of cases. A student should remember carefully that judicial decisions, though they may be leading cases and the most valuable that can be found, may nevertheless contain dicta, and that he must discriminate between dicta and the points actually decided. Moreover, statements of general principles, as set forth in the decisions, are sometimes made too broadly, because the judge has his mind concentrated upon the questions involved in the particular case he has to decide, and does not think of the possible limitations which the doctrine may need to adapt it to analogous cases of varied character. Still, these sources of error are less likely to be found in a col lection of leading cases. Containing the opinions of judges of eminence than in other instances. And, besides, the authors of the best text-books, in preparing their trea tises examine and compare the numerous and varied cases that bear upon the same points, and thus are able to set forth the principles of law in their true and accurate form, properly limited and classified. This is, again, another important reason for studying the text-books and illustrative cases together. 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.