Page:The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes.djvu/4

iv been omitted, as not necessary for a reader with the book before him.

The limits of such an undertaking as the present must necessarily be more or less arbitrary. Those to which I have confined myself have been fixed in part by the limits of the course for which the Lectures were written. I have therefore not attempted to deal with Equity, and have even excluded those subjects, like Bills and Notes, or Partnership, which would naturally require an isolated treatment, and which do not promise to throw light on general theory. If, within the bounds which I have set myself, anyone should feel inclined to reproach me for a want of greater detail, I can only quote the words of Lehuërou, “Nous faisons une théorie et non un spicilège.”

O. W. HOLMES, February 8, 1881.