The Law of Gravitation. of claimants submit their theories of the law to the Supreme Court, each confirmed and strengthened by the approval of one of the two lower courts, while the third, with their contention as yet unapproved, share with
the others in a firm conviction that they must succeed in this last hearing. Whatever the result may be it should t>e cordially greeted as a final settlement of a problem that has puzzled many courts for many years.
THE LAW OF GRAVITATION. IX spite of the almost universal application of the Law of Gravitation, I cannot call to mind any treatise of a legal nature dealing with its various aspects and collating the scattered cases. This, then, must be the ex cuse for this brochure. It has often been said that Chancellor Newton in the case of Apple v. Earth, 6 P .D. Q. 77, was the first to take notice of this branch of the law, but I hope to show that this view is erroneous, and that the principles involved are far more ancient and of an infinitely wider scope. In England itself, the home of the common law, we have only to turn to Henry VIII." for a carefully annotated report of the Fall of Wolsey. Indeed most of the testimony is given at length. A careful comparison of the facts of these two cases gives us a grasp on the most salient principles involved: I. Anything which falls, stops. II. A subsequent rising is impossible per se. III. Momentum is dangerous.1 Assuming for the moment the truth of these dicta, let us go further back into the mists of antiquity and note the application of them.2 Our facile pen having bridged the gulf of time, behold the Fall of Troy! A careful search through the twenty-four volumes of Judge Homer's "Commentaries on Ilian Law" has revealed but one case in point,— namely Menelaus v. Paris, 2 Ithaca Law Journal 50. Here we have abundant support for our theories. Without going deeply into 1 In accord, Fingí-. Pong, 13 N. E. Rep., 005. 3 The dicta, not the mists.
the facts, surely it will not be denied that the fair divorcee's fall ceased contemporaneously with that of Troy.3 But enough of this. Let us come to mod ern times. The Fall of Jerusalem, with its multitudinous legal problems, stands square ly for the proposition that the defendants fell heir to troubles.' Need we say more?4 Again, to turn to mediaeval history, we find in an interesting old volume that may be known to a few of our legal brethren a some what exhaustive account of the Fall of Adam. It is unfortunate that we do not know the libellantes last name, as we are thereby prevented from ascertaining' if he was ever a party to a suit before. The case of Leaves v. Corpus, i Y. B. 2, seems to im ply that he was, but the evidence is mani festly merely hearsay.5 Be that as it may, the report shows clearly enough that the postulates of the law were clearly recognized before 1643. Nay, I will go further and sub mit that Lord Sisyphus, Master of the Rolls, in the case of Tantalus v. Fate, 653702 Hades Law Rcvic-a' 6668, clearly consid ered Lucifer, Chief Jay, as coming within the bounds of the Law of Gravitation. And so from the Fall of Lucifer to the Fall of 1902 we meet a series of complementary cases which go far towards establishing the fact that Chancellor Newton was merely a clever applicant of well recognized principles, and not an inventor of a new branch of judica ture. 3 Not Troy, N. Y. 1 Odell г: Bird, 1902, N. Y. Supreme, i.
5 New England Primer : " In Adams' Fall we sinned all "; which seems to show the adoption of the doctrine into the United States.—Ed.
