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The Path of the Law

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. · English text · 10,196 words

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. asks readers to view law from the practical perspective of someone predicting how courts will act, rather than treating legal rules as abstract moral truths.

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Background

First delivered as a lecture in 1897, the essay became an influential statement in American legal thought. This text uses Project Gutenberg eBook 2373 because the anthology extraction was incomplete.

Reading notes

  • Keep Holmes’s “bad man” thought experiment in view.
  • Separate a prediction about legal consequences from a moral judgment.
  • Mark where the essay shifts from definition to advice for legal study.

Version note

English text: The Path of the Law, Project Gutenberg eBook 2373. The supplied anthology extraction was incomplete and has been replaced with this public-domain text.