Their rigid dogma of infallibility allows of this much relaxation in favor of truth unwittingly for saken. Indeed, reversion to truth in some rare instances is highly necessary to their permanent well-being. Though it is a temporary degrada tion from the type of judicial perfection, it has to be endured to keep the type itself respectable. Minor errors, even if quite obvious, or important errors if their existence be fairly doubtful, may be adhered to and repeated indefinitely; but the only treatment for a great and glaring error af fecting the current administration of justice in all courts of original jurisdiction, is to correct it. When an error of this magnitude and which moves in so wide an orbit competes with truth in the struggle for existence, the maxim for a supreme court, supreme in the majesty of duty as well as in the majesty of power, is not stare decisis butyW justitia ruat coclum." — Ellison v. Ga. Railroad, 87th Ga., 696. "In my opinion it was error to grant a non suit. The engineer lost his life by mistake of the company, and his widow lost her case by mistake of the court." — Devine v. S. F. & W. Ry., 89th Ga., 541. "Good sense, good morality and good law are one and the same so long as they are not sundered violently by legislation or ignorantly by judicial error. Their unity and identity, so far as one of the questions in this case is con cerned, we find still intact. There is no statute to drive, neither is there any precedent to lead decision into absurdity or injustice." — Hull v. Myers, 90th Ga., 677. "Both briefs furnished us in the case at bar are sufficiently striking to deserve mention. That of Mr. Mc Lester is intensely classical. It opens thus : ' When the mother of Achilles plunged him in the Stygian waters his body became invulner able, except the heel by which she held him, and afterwards when he and Polyxena, the daughter of the King of Troy, who were lovers, met in the Temple of Apollo to solemnize their marriage, Paris, the brother of Hector, lurking behind the image of Apollo, slew Achilles by shooting him in the heel with an arrow.' "The brief of the solicitor-general is less poetic, but equally irrelevant. It cites seven cases from the Georgia Reports, not one of which has any bearing on the question, for in each of the cited cases the attempt to kill was successful. When
a homicide actually occurs from the voluntary use of a deadly weapon, an intention to kill is very much more certain than it is when the man assaulted is not killed but only shot in the toe." — Gilbert v. State, 90th Ga., 694. "Where a rape is intended, the injury con templated can be inflicted only by actual contact of the sexual organs of the man with those of the woman. In order for an assault with intent to rape to be committed is it necessary that the per sons of the two should be in such proximity as that the organs of the male shall be within what may be termed ' striking distance ' of the organs of the female? Or, is the virile member to be treated as a gun which is harmless until brought within ' carrying distance ' of the target? We think not." — Jackson v. State, 91st Ga., 329. "In consequence of the wide range of investi gation and the thorough course of study into which the writer was led by the exigencies of this one case, he feels prepared to produce a treatise on cumulative evidence, and yet he is quite un prepared for the minor and more moderate task of writing a judicial opinion on the subject. The exact truth is that, though he well knows what cumulative evidence is, he does not know what evidence is cumulative. He can define, but cannot distinguish. Of course, this state ment is meant to be taken literally in rare in stances only." — Cooper v. State, 91st Ga., 366. "The groom and bride each comes within The circle of the other's kin; But kin and kin are still no more Related than they were before." — Central R. R. v. Roberts, 91st Ga., 517. "Society demands protection, but does not thirst for vengeance. In so far as human pun ishment is without necessity, it is without justifi cation, no matter who may be its author or its minister." — Colbert v. State, 91st Ga., 711. "Anyone who seriously doubts the correctness of this ruling may readily solve his doubts by studying law." — Dutton v. State, 92d Ga., 15. "There is no less skepticism in law than in theology. This court is called upon again and again for a fresh revelation of some legal truth which has already been revealed." — Central R.R. v. Phinazee, 93d Ga., 488. "It hath never happened from the earliest times to the present, that barbers, who are an ancient order of small craftsmen serving their
