ires, will
warp the actual compromises made by the legal system this way or that.
In order to maintain the general security we endeavor in every way to
minimize this warping. But one needs only to look below the surface of
the law anywhere at any time to see it going on, even if covered up by
mechanical devices to make the process appear an absolute one and the
result a predetermined one. We may not expect that the compromises
made and enforced by the legal order will always and infallibly give
effect to any picture we may make of the nature or ends of the process
of making and enforcing them. Yet there will be less of this
subconscious warping if we have a clear picture before us of what we
are seeking to do and to what end, and if we build in the image
thereof so far as we consciously build and shape the law.

Difficulties arise chiefly in connection with criteria of value. If we
say that interests are to be catalogued or inventoried, that they are
then to be valued, that those which are found to be of requisite value
are to be recognized legally and given effect within limits determined
by the valuation, so far as inherent difficulties in effective legal
securing of interests will permit, the question arises at once, How
shall we do this work of valuing? Philosophers have devoted much
ingenuity to the discovery of some method of getting at the intrinsic
importance of various interests, so that an absolute formula may be
reached in accordance wherewith it may be assured that the weightier
interests intrinsically shall prevail. But I am skeptical as to the
possibility of an absolute judgment. We are confronted at this point
by a fundamental question of social and political philosophy. I do not
believe the jurist has to do more than recognize the problem and
perceive that it is presented to him as one of securing all social
interests so far as he may, of maintaining a balance or harmony among
them that is compatible with the securing of all of them. The last
century preferred the general security. The present century has shown
many signs of preferring the individual moral and social life. I doubt
whether such preferences can maintain themselves.

Social utilitarians would say, weigh the several interests in terms of
the end of law. But have we any given to us absolutely? Is the end of
law anything less than to do whatever may be achieved thereby to
satisfy human desires? Are the limits any other than those imposed by