common law regarded the contract as inseparable from the paper on which
it was written, but the reasoning was general, and soon was extended to
other written contracts, and various absurd and unreal grounds of policy
were invented to account for the enlarged rule.

I trust that no one will understand me to be speaking with disrespect
of the law, because I criticise it so freely. I venerate the law, and
especially our system of law, as one of the vastest products of the
human mind. No one knows better than I do the countless number of
great intellects that have spent themselves in making some addition or
improvement, the greatest of which is trifling when compared with the
mighty whole. It has the final title to respect that it exists, that
it is not a Hegelian dream, but a part of the lives of men. But one may
criticise even what one reveres. Law is the business to which my life is
devoted, and I should show less than devotion if I did not do what in me
lies to improve it, and, when I perceive what seems to me the ideal of
its future, if I hesitated to point it out and to press toward it with
all my heart.

Perhaps I have said enough to show the part which the study of history
necessarily plays in the intelligent study of the law as it is today. In
the teaching of this school and at Cambridge it is in no danger of being
undervalued. Mr. Bigelow here and Mr. Ames and Mr. Thayer there have
made important contributions which will not be forgotten, and in England
the recent history of early English law by Sir Frederick Pollock and Mr.
Maitland has lent the subject an almost deceptive charm. We must
beware of the pitfall of antiquarianism, and must remember that for our
purposes our only interest in the past is for the light it throws upon
the present. I look forward to a time when the part played by history in
the explanation of dogma shall be very small, and instead of ingenious