Path Of The Law Holmes

Holmes in “The Path Of The Law” has taken a pragmatic approach in understanding and evaluating law. Holmes’s arguments had a great impact in the formulation of the American legal realism. With his arguments on eradication of ‘naturals rights’ and ‘morals’ from law, Holmes helped the American legal realism reach where it is now. The Path Of The Law begins by providing reasons as to why people engage lawyers in the first place. One of the reasons being that, in many cases the command of the public force is entrusted with judges, and to enforce its decisions, the whole power of the state would be used. No one wants to come up against something so much more powerful than him or her.

The article also assures us that in every system there is a

“The oracles of law” as Holmes says it (Holmes, 2006), enables lawyers to predict the consequence, which is all that matters!

But, what has to be taken into consideration is the fact that, judges do not decide a case in vacuum. They do not merely ‘apply’ the laws. They might take a technical or non- technical view of the case. Various case laws, the facts of the case and other factors are taken into consideration before the judge forms a concrete decision. Case laws, which are a part of the “prophecies” and “oracles of law” combined with the mindset of the judge among other things, gives an unpredictable character to law.

“If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict, not as a good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in the vaguer sanctions of conscience… The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious are what I mean by the law” – Bad man theory (Holmes,

His complete disregard for public law portrays backward thinking.

Also, the statement, “nothing but confusion of thought can result from assuming that the rights of man in a moral sense are equally rights in the sense of the Constitution and the law” shows that, in his theory he excludes the relevancy of morals from the constitution as well. This could pose a major problem because the fundamental rights and various other important rights are granted to the people by the constitution. So, if morals, equity and conscience were kept distinct from law when formulating these rights of the people, the end result would be disastrous.

The Path Of The Law ends by keeping in mind the intended party i.e. lawyers and law students. An inspirational note, which talks about the path of happiness, is attached to it. Long-term happiness is not achieved by wealth or success, but by having command over the universal laws. This can be achieved by relating our subject law to other aspects in the