The Path of the Law

By Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr.

Book Id: WPLBN0000633756
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.5 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	The Path of the Law
Author:	Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr.
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Classic Literature Collection, Blackmask Online Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Blackmask Online


Citation APA MLA Chicago Wendell Holmes Jr, B. O. (n.d.). The Path of the Law. Retrieved from https://self.gutenberg.org/

Description
Excerpt: When we study law we are not studying a mystery but a well?known profession. We are studying what we shall want in order to appear before judges, or to advise people in such a way as to keep them out of court. The reason why it is a profession, why people will pay lawyers to argue for them or to advise them, is that in societies like ours the command of the public force is intrusted to the judges in certain cases, and the whole power of the state will be put forth, if necessary, to carry out their judgments and decrees. People want to know under what circumstances and how far they will run the risk of coming against what is so much stronger than themselves, and hence it becomes a business to find out when this danger is to be feared. The object of our study, then, is prediction, the prediction of the incidence of the public force through the instrumentality of the courts.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents: The Path of the Law, 1 -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, 1