Technicalities
Strict adherence to law can hinder wise action and cause greater harm.
Lord Clarendon, in describing the fire in the Temple, London, in 1666, says: “The Lord Mayor, tho a very honest man, was much blamed for want of sagacity in the first night of the fire, before the wind gave it much advancement. When men who were less terrified with the object prest him very earnestly that he would give orders for the present pulling down those houses which were nearest, and by which the fire climbed to go further, the doing whereof at that time might probably have prevented much of the mischief that succeeded, he thought it not safe, and made no other answer than that he durst not do it without the consent of the owners. His want of skill was the less wondered at when it was known afterward that some gentlemen of the Inner Temple would not endeavor to preserve the goods which were in the lodgings of absent persons, because they said it was against the law to break up any man’s chamber.”--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”