法律之道

］Oliver Wendell Holmes,Jr.(1841—1935) is ,arguably ,the most important American jurist of the twentieth century,and his essay The Path of the Law, originally a speech given to a group of lawyers,judges and s cholars at Boston University School of Law and first published in 1897,is the se minal work in American legal theory.In this essay Holmes aims to explore the sco pe and function of law historically and socially.The object of the legal study a nd even law itself,in his view,is prediction,the prediction of the incidence of the public force through the instrumentality of the court.The rational study of law is still,to a large extent,the study of history;history must be a part of th e study,because without it we cannot know the precise scope of rules which it is our business to know.For the rational study of the law,therefore,the black-lett er man may be the man of the present,but the man of the future is the man of sta tistics and the master of economics.It’s Holmes’ prediction for the future of th e law and the years has witnessed that it is extremely prescient.