What Makes the Rule of Law Legitimate?
What exactly is Law but a well-known and legitimate Profession? According to Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in an address made to the students of the Boston Law School in the year 1897, a law student must remember certain important points when embarking on a study of law, and he stated that the student must be both pragmatic and also specific. He also said that there are some individuals who feel that the Law in itself is a mystery of sorts, and obscure in its ways, and its various twists and turns, but the fact is, Law is something that those people who are studying it do in order to be able to appear before a judge, or to prevent certain people from having to appear in a Court of Law. Therefore, if one wished to study the Law, then perhaps it would be good to peruse certain important principles that would serve as the background for the study of this profession, also known as 'systematized predictions'. (Holmes, 3)Maybe these principles would help those men who would like to use the Law as an instrument on which to base their 'predictions' of the future. There is an ideal that is as yet unattained by the persons in this profession, and this is that most people do not understand its limits, and therefore, as a result, the boundary
between morality and Law is often broken without compunction. For example, a bad man has his own reasons to avoid the police, and this shows the practical difference between the law and morality, the same as a good man, but for the bad man, the distinction between morality and law is slim. However, this is not to say that this is a cynical view; the law is indeed a witness to the moral fiber of a human being, and the history of law reveals this fact with clarity, and when law is practiced, it makes "good citizens and good men". However, since most of law is encased in language that is not easily comprehensible, it makes it lapse into something akin to fallacy at some point, and this must be avoided. (Holmes, 3) There are two types of jurisprudence, one being 'ethical' and the other which is 'analytical'. When compared to English jurisprudence, American jurisprudence is essentially more complicated, and it is dedicated to a large extent on the issue of how courts decide complicated and complex cases. The needs of industrialization, and the need to deal with legal issues made the American courts succeeded in shaping the Constitutional Laws of the country during the nineteenth century, and this perhaps led to the skeptical views that people like Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Chipman Gray had of the entire judicial process, leading them to publish their views in certain legal publications. (Dworkin, 3) This type of skeptical approach, shared by numerous other eminent people, started to grow, and by the 1920's and the 1930's, it had become an intellectual movement that was termed 'legal realism', and its leaders were Jerome Frank, Karl Llewelyn, Wesley Sturges, and Morris and Felix Cohen. Therefore, does this mean that every human law has been derived form natural law? No. Positive law is in contrast with natural law, and it is said that the legal meaning of 'just' can encompass indifference too. (Aquinas, 1) In the 'Grand Inquisitor', where the action has taken place in the sixteenth century, the time of miracles and mystery, the God in Heaven had come down to Earth, and had started to heal the many sick and disabled who had flocked to him. (Chapter 5, The Grand Inquisitor, 248-249) When he raises a child from her coffin, he is arrested, and the Grand Inquisitor comes to visit Him in jail. (Chapter 5, The Grand Inquisitor, 249) He asks Him, "Is it You?" and admonishes Him for having come there to interfere and get in the way. He also states that he has wasted his entire life in committing acts of love for mankind, and for proving His love to man. (Chapter 5, The Grand Inquisitor, 250) When an individual, for example, wants to find out exactly how a particular law originated, all he does is refer to a Year Book, where what his forefathers had stated would be recorded, and this would give him the answer. Therefore, History is a part of the study of Law. It is also important that the student of law gets a liberal view of law, and this means that he must attempt to get to the very bottom of the subject. Since 'theory' has also improved dramatically over the past generations, it is easy for the student today to refer to the theory available to him. He must also use his imagination, and not simply concentrate on 'making money', although this is also very important. (Holmes, 7)
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2582
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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