ABSTRACT
The dilemma which Adamson faced was presented to the Court so as to invite it to overthrow its traditional stand on the relation between the Fourteenth Amendment and the first eight Amendments. The Court, instead, reaffirmed that traditional stand. Black’s dissenting opinion accused the traditional view of putting the Court in the position of applying a discredited doctrine of natural law. Philosophy of law is, then, a little like a movie about show business, and, conversely, just as common men begin to behave as movies portray them as behaving, so the folk think about justice as philosophers tell them folks think about justice. Judges and legislators and administrators are not guided by justice but by what folks think, and what folks think, though a little behind the times, just grows like Topsy, bent this way and that by experiences guided by that which is itself the product of experiences.
