“ The extraordinary deference paid to precedents is the source of the most striking peculiarities of the English common law. There can be little doubt that it was the rigid adherence of the common law courts to established precedent which caused the rise of an independent tribunal administering justice on more equitable principles—the tribunal of the chancellor, the court of chancery. And the old common law courts—the king’s bench, common pleas and exchequer—were always, as compared with the court of chancery, distinguished for a certain narrowness and technicality of reasoning. ”