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The Path of the Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
page 24 of 28 (85%)
the practical mind, such as Mercantile Law. If a man goes into law
it pays to be a master of it, and to be a master of it means to look
straight through all the dramatic incidents and to discern the true
basis for prophecy. Therefore, it is well to have an accurate notion
of what you mean by law, by a right, by a duty, by malice, intent, and
negligence, by ownership, by possession, and so forth. I have in my mind
cases in which the highest courts seem to me to have floundered because
they had no clear ideas on some of these themes. I have illustrated
their importance already. If a further illustration is wished, it may be
found by reading the Appendix to Sir James Stephen's Criminal Law on
the subject of possession, and then turning to Pollock and Wright's
enlightened book. Sir James Stephen is not the only writer whose
attempts to analyze legal ideas have been confused by striving for a
useless quintessence of all systems, instead of an accurate anatomy of
one. The trouble with Austin was that he did not know enough English
law. But still it is a practical advantage to master Austin, and his
predecessors, Hobbes and Bentham, and his worthy successors, Holland and
Pollock. Sir Frederick Pollock's recent little book is touched with
the felicity which marks all his works, and is wholly free from the
perverting influence of Roman models.

The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as
a list of the hundred best books. At least in my day I had my share of
such counsels, and high among the unrealities I place the recommendation
to study the Roman law. I assume that such advice means more than
collecting a few Latin maxims with which to ornament the discourse--the
purpose for which Lord Coke recommended Bracton. If that is all that
is wanted, the title De Regulis Juris Antiqui can be read in an hour. I
assume that, if it is well to study the Roman Law, it is well to study
it as a working system. That means mastering a set of technicalities
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