MAXIMS, LEGAL. A maxim is an established principle or proposition. The Latin term maxima is not to be found in Roman law with any meaning exactly analogous to that of a legal maxim in the modern sense of the word, but the treatises of many of the Roman jurists on regulae, definitiones and sententiae juris are in some measure, collections of maxims. Fortescue (De laudi bus, c. 8) and Du Cange treat maxima and regula as identical. The attitude of early English commentators towards the maxims of the law was one of unmingled adulation (see Bacon's preface to his Collection of Maxims). A similar note was sounded in Scotland. In later times less value has been attached to the maxims of the law, as the development of civilization and the increasing complexity of business relations have shown the necessity of quali fying the propositions which they enunciate (see Stephen, Hist. Crim. Law, ii. 94 n: Yarmouth v. France, 1887, 19 Q.B.D., per Lord Esher at p. 653, and American authorities collected in Bou vier's Law Diet. s.v. "Maxim").
A brief reference need only be made here, with examples by way of illustration, to the field which the maxims of the law cover. Commencing with rules founded on public policy, we may note the famous principle Salus populi suprema lex, "the public welfare is the highest law." It is on this maxim that the coercive action of the State towards individual liberty in a hundred matters is based. Among the maxims relating to the Crown, the most important are Rex non potest peccare—"the king can do no wrong"—which en shrines the principle of ministerial responsibility, and Nullum tempos occurrit regi—"lapse of time does not bar the Crown," a maxim qualified by various enactments in modern times. Passing to the judicial office and the administration of justice, we may refer to the rules—Audi alterarn partem—a proposition too fami liar to need either translation or comment ; Nemo debet esse judex in proprid sud causd—"no man ought to be judge in his own cause"—a maxim which French law and the legal systems based upon or allied to it have embodied in an elaborate network of rules for judicial challenge. The maxim Boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionern is certainly erroneous as it stands, as a judge has no right to "extend his jurisdiction." If justitiam be substituted for jhrisdictionem, as Lord Mansfield said it should be, the maxim is near the truth. A group of maxims supposed to embody certain fundamental principles of legal right and obligations may next be referred to: (a) UN jus ibi remediuin—a maxim to which the evolution of the flexible "action on the case," by which wrongs unknown to the "original writs" were dealt with, was historically due, but which must be taken with the gloss Damnum absque in juria—"there are forms of actual damage which do not constitute legal injury" for which the law does not supply any remedy; (b) Actus Dei nemini facit injurianr—and its allied maxim, Lex non cogit ad impossibilia—upon which the whole doctrine of vis major (force mejeure) and impossible conditions in the law of con tract has been built up. In this category may also be classed
olenti non fit injuria, out of which sprang the theory—now pro foundly modified by statute—of "common employment" in the law of employers' liability (see Smith v. Baker, 1891, A.C. 325). Other maxims deal with rights of property—Qui prior est tempore, potior est jure, which consecrates the position of the beati possi dentes alike in municipal and in international law, and Sic utere too ut allenzim non laedas, which has played its part in the determi nation of the rights of adjacent owners (see Rylands v. Fletcher, L.R 3 H.L. 33o). In the laws of family relations there is the maxim Pater is est quern nuptiae demonstrant, on which, in most civilized countries, the presumption of legitimacy depends (see Russell v. Russell, 1924, A.C. 687). In the interpretation of written instruments, the maxim Noscitur a sociis, which proclaims the importance of the context, still applies. So do the rules Ex pressio unius est exclusio alterius—"often a valuable servant, but a dangerous master" (Colquhoun v. Brooks, 19 Q.B.D 406) and Contetnporanea expositio est optima et fortissima in lege, which lets in evidence of contemporaneous user as an aid to the inter pretation of statutes or documents (see Van Diemen's Land Co. v. Table Cape Marine Board, 1906, A.C. 92, 98; and React v. Lincoln, Bishop of, 1892, A.C. 644). We may conclude this sketch with a miscellaneous summary : Caveat emptor, "let the purchaser beware"; Qui facit per alium facit per se, which affirms the principal's liability for the acts of his agent ; Ignorantia juris neminem excusat, on which rests the ordinary citizen's obligation to know the law, and Actio personalis moritur cum persona, a rule now mainly confined to actions of tort and limited by numerous exceptions. For maxims of equity see EQUITY.