ABSTRACT
Custom has often been declared to be the source of all Law, except what rests upon statutes. John Austin recognized that judges make Law, but he said that in making it they are obeying the command of the Sovereign, because whatever the Sovereign permits, he commands. Custom is not opinion, it is practice, and the neglect to clearly grasp this fact seems to me to lie at the root of Mr Carter's theory. A judge often decides, and properly decides, against his own opinion of right and wrong; for instance, when he is compelled by the precise words of a statute. There is every reason to suppose that hundreds of rules in the substantive Law originated in the courts, and that the bulk of the community had nothing to do with them and knew nothing about them. The part of the Law in which custom has the most influence is in the sphere of interpretation.
