



Produced by Stuart E. Thiel





THE COMMON LAW

By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.



Conventions:

Numbers in square brackets (e.g. [245]) refer to original page
numbers. Original footnotes were numbered page-by-page, and are
collected at the end of the text. In the text, numbers in slashes
(e.g./1/) refer to original footnote numbers. In the footnote
section, a number such as 245/1 refers to (original) page 245,
footnote 1. The footnotes are mostly citations to old English law
reporters and to commentaries by writers such as Ihering, Bracton
and Blackstone. I cannot give a source for decrypting the
notation.

There is quite a little Latin and some Greek in the original
text. I have reproduced the Latin. The Greek text is omitted; its
place is marked by the expression [Greek characters]. Italics and
diacritical marks such as accents and cedillas are omitted and
unmarked.

Lecture X has two subheads--Successions After Death and
Successions Inter Vivos. Lecture XI is also titled Successions
Inter Vivos. This conforms to the original.




LECTURE I. -- EARLY FORMS OF LIABILITY.

[1] The object of this book is to present a general view of the
Common Law. To accomplish the task, other tools are needed
besides logic. It is something to show that the consistency of a
system requires a particular result, but it is not all. The life
of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt
necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political
theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious,
even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men,
have had a good deal more to