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Article: Holmes' failure. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.)
- Article from:
- Michigan Law Review
- Article date:
- December 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Michigan Law Review Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I. PRELIMINARILY
I have just set down the March 1997 Harvard Law Review, with its centennial celebration(1) of Oliver Wendell Holmes' The Path of the Law.(2) The Path of the Law is a grand thing, in my view Holmes' best thing. But just the same, I find myself surprised that on this occasion none of its celebrants(3) raised what has always seemed to me a weakness of the piece, and of Holmes' much earlier book, The Common Law.(4) This is a weakness that is at once a reflection and a forecast of the failure of its author.
Writers today do seem to have come to terms with a revised, rather mean Holmes.(5) But the particular failing I have in mind seems ...