PREFACE.

THE object of this book is to exhibit the influence which equitable principles have had upon the different branches of English law; it does not purport to deal with any branch of law except so far as that branch is governed by equitable principles. Some branches of law, e.g., trusts, are governed exclusively by equitable principles, and are therefore treated as exhaustively as the limited space will allow. In others, again, e.g., married women's property, waste, administration of assets on death, equity has worked on а common law foundation, but equitable doctrines have modified the common law so profoundly that it is impossible in any exposition to separate the two sides of the subject. In other cases, again, equity has simply assisted by its superior remedies in the enforcement of common law rights. The law of nuisance, ancient lights, riparian

rights has been to a great extent settled in the Chancery Division on applications for injunctions; but it has been determined solely by reference to common law rules, and is therefore not dealt with in this treatise.

It would appear at first sight that no question as to the construction of instruments, whether statutes, deeds, or wills, could properly find place in a work on the principles of equity. The same words, it may be said, must receive and have always received the same construction in every Court. While it is true that technical terms were interpreted in the same way by the judges of common law and the judges of equity, Courts of Equity unfortunately felt that they could infer in many cases what the wishes of a testator, or settlor, or legislative body in the abstract must be; and they applied these inferences, e.g., the presumption against double portions, wherever the language of the instrument which they had to construe was not strong enough to exclude them. It is therefore necessary in such cases to deal with questions of interpretation.

An attempt is made to state the doctrines of equity as they are applied at the present moment; but it is often impossible to make them intelligible without touching, to some extent, upon their origin and development. Moreover, the existence in English law of two bodies of rules which are often contradictory requires an explanation, and that explanation can only be historical. These remarks will, it is hoped, excuse the introduction of some matter which might at first sight appear of purely antiquarian interest.

This book has been written primarily for beginners. It may, however, be found useful by practising lawyers. The simpler a legal proposition is, the harder, as a rule, it is to find a precise authority upon it; and in this volume a great number of the elementary rules of equity are stated and supported by references.

W. A.