ABSTRACT
Life was a matter of social law, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was skeptical of the reformist tinkering with what was an inherent part of human society. This chapter presents a general view of the Common Law. If people would gratify the passion of revenge outside of the law, if the law did not help them, the law has no choice but to satisfy the craving itself, and thus avoid the greater evil of private retribution. The degree of civilization which a people has reached, no doubt, is marked by their anxiety to do as they would be done by. It may be the destiny of man that the social instincts shall grow to control his actions absolutely, even in anti-social situations. For civil liability, in its immediate working, is simply a redistribution of an existing loss between two individuals. It is not intended to deny that criminal liability, as well as civil, is founded on blameworthiness.
