associates at all consultations before he gives his own. Senator
Hoar makes a pungent comment on Chief Justice Shaw's want of it,
in his Autobiography, II, 413.] Every instance of dissent has a
certain tendency to weaken the authority of the decision and even
of the court. Law should be certain, and the community in which
those charged with its judicial administration differ
irreconcilably as to what its rules really are, as applied to the
transaction of the daily business of life, will have some cause
to think that either their laws or their courts are defective and
inadequate. For these reasons judges of appellate courts often
concur in opinions, of the soundness of which they are only
convinced because of the respect they entertain for the good
judgment of their associates. They are willing to distrust
themselves rather than them.

Not seldom, however, dissent and the preparation of a dissenting
opinion has in the course of time, aided, perhaps, by some change
of membership, converted the court and led to overruling a
position incautiously taken which was inconsistent with settled
law.[Footnote: A striking instance of this is the case of
Sanderson _v._ Pennsylvania Coal Co., 86 Pennsylvania State
Reports, 401; 94 _id_., 302; 102 _id_., 370; 113
_id_., 126; 6 Atlantic Reporter, 453.]

More than eighty out of every hundred of the opinions delivered
in the courts of last resort of each State of the United States,
excepting one (New Jersey), and contained in the last volume of
the reports of each published prior to June, 1904, were
unanimous. In New Jersey seventy-three out of every hundred
were. In two States, Maryland and Vermont, there was dissent in