Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/471

Rh where the appeals of death, of wounding or maiming, of arson and the like had taken the place of self-help, to be succeeded by the modification known as the action of trespass. But when the action on the case let libel and slander and all the other wrongs which are known to the modern law into the civil courts, for centuries each of the recognized torts had its special history, its own precedents, and no one dreamed, so far as I know, that the different cases of liability were, or ought to be, governed by the same principles throughout. As is said in the preface to Mr. Jaggard's book, "the use of a book on Torts, as a distinct subject, was a few years ago a matter of ridicule." You may see the change which has taken place by comparing Hilliard on Torts, which proceeds by enumeration in successive chapters through assault and battery, libel and slander, nuisance, trespass, conversion, etc., with Sir Frederick Pollock's Introduction, in which he says that the purpose of his book "is to show that there really is a Law of Torts, not merely a number of rules of law about various kinds of torts—that this is a true living branch of the Common Law, not a collection of heterogeneous instances." It would be bold, perhaps, to say that the integration was complete, that it did not rest partly in tendency. The recent much discussed case of Allen v. Flood, in the House of Lords, seems to me to indicate that, in the view of the older generation even of able and learned men, the foundation of liability still is somewhat in the air, and that tradition and enumeration are the best guides to this day. But I have no doubt that the generalizing principle will prevail, as generalization so often prevails, even in advance of evidence, because of the ease of mind and comfort which it brings.

Any one who thinks about the world as I do does not need proof that the scientific study of any part of it has an interest which is the same in kind as that of any other part. If the examples which I have given fail to make the interest plain, there is no use in my adding to them, and so I shall pass to another part of my subject. But first let me add a word. The man of science in the law is not merely a bookworm. To a microscopic eye for detail he must unite an insight which tells him what details are significant. Not every maker of exact investigation counts, but only he who directs his investigation to a crucial point. But I doubt if there is any more exalted form of life than that of a great abstract thinker, wrapt in the successful study of problems to which he devotes himself, for an end which is neither unselfish nor selfish in the 59