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THE GREEN BAG

ance of contracts relating to land, none should be made in this instance. EQUITY (see Wills). HISTORY. An address before the Indiana State Bar Association by Arthur W. Brady entitled " Some Phases of Historical Juris prudence " is published in the January Amer ican Lawyer (V. xiv, p. 3). "The history of the law is so closely inter woven with the law in its actually existing state that no lawyer who has mastered the elements of his profession could be entirely ignorant of that history, even if he would. "Its great value in such training is due to two chief considerations. One is that no doc trine or principle of the common law and no statutory enactment can be said to be mastered unless traced, as near as may be, to its origin, 'the needs of society which led to its creation examined, the characteristics of the people to which it was adapted considered, and its growth and development scrutinized. Unless this be done, a rule of law is learned, not understood, and, if any unusual combination of circumstances be presented, is as likely to be misapplied as to be applied correctly. An instance in point is instructive: "Another consideration, demonstrating the importance of the study of historical juris prudence, is found in the force with which that study impresses on our minds the truth of what may be termed the law of the uniformity of human action. This law is as distinct and immutable as any other of the laws of nature, but its existence is often overlooked, or at least disregarded. It declares human char acteristics to be such that, under like circum stances and conditions, the tendency of human action is the same. A proper conception of this principle is essential to a broad and thor ough knowledge and understanding of the law. It helps to lighten dark places and make rough paths smooth. It aids the development of that faculty most valuable — nay, absolutely essential — to a lawyer of appraising pre cedents at their true value without disregarding their almost unconscious modification by the ever-changing current of human affairs, and thus of determining correctly from the decisions of yesterday what the decisions of to-morrow will be. This principle demonstrates, also, that •no living system of law is changeless, but, on

the contrary, that even without statutory enactment it is modified from generation to generation, so as to conform more nearly to the ideals of advancing civilization." The author gives interesting illustrations of his thesis. HISTORY. In the January Law Quarterly Review (V. xxii, p. 73) Sir Frederick Pol lock concludes his valuable " Notes on Maine's Ancient Law." These are to be part of a new edition of this famous work, soon to be pub lished. HISTORY (Constitutional Law). Gordon E. Sherman writes in the February Yale Law Journal (V. xv, p. 172) about " Early Sugges tions of the Modern Written Constitution." The earliest analogy which he describes is the scheme of government by which the revolu tionists of Athens in the spring of B. c. 411 sought to place the government under the limi tations of a written plan, whose purposes, from a constitutional standpoint, are those of the limited constitution of to-day. The entire incident, including the subsequent return to democracy, the constitution of the fathers, illustrates with the utmost clearness the distinction at which Greek public thought had manifestly arrived in the employment of the term " constitution " in the abstract and in the concrete; this is, in fact, the same dis tinction with which we are so familiar to-day when we apply the term " constitution " to such a form of government as that of Great Britain on the one hand, and our own upon the other. It is nothing less than the distinction between the immediate presence, as in England, of sovereignty in legislation and administration, and government through a representation, in the United States, acting under written limita tions — in other words the modern written constitution. He finds two similar analogies in English history, first, in the provisions of Oxford, which sought to limit the power of the crown. Four centuries later he finds similar suggestions in the days of the English commonwealth. HISTORY (Property). In the January Amer ican Law Review (V. xl, p. 9) Frederick C. Bryan writes of the " Origin of English Land Tenures." He discusses the history of the influence which led to the establishment of the feudal system of land-holding in England, and