aw, 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
research we shall spend our energy on a study of the ends sought to be
attained and the reasons for desiring them. As a step toward that ideal
it seems to me that every lawyer ought to seek an understanding of
economics. The present divorce between the schools of political economy
and law seems to me an evidence of how much progress in philosophical
study still remains to be made. In the present state of political
economy, indeed, we come again upon history on a larger scale, but there
we are called on to consider and weigh the ends of legislation, the
means of attaining them, and the cost. We learn that for everything we
have we give up something else, and we are taught to set the advantage
we gain against the other advantage we lose, and to know what we are
doing when we elect.

There is another study which sometimes is undervalued by the practical
minded, for which I wish to say a