ABSTRACT
WhendiscussionofleadingwritersonJurisprudenceisfound referringequallytotheirbooksorarticlesandtotheiropinions layingdowndoctrinefortheSupremeCourtoftheUnitedStates,1 thereisreasonforfeelingthatthelong-standingexileofJurisprudenceintotheduskieranddustierportionsofthelibraries mayhavecometoanend.Whentwoofthemostdiscussedmodern writersoccupystrategicpolicy-shapingpositionsinWashington,2 andanAmericanBarAssociationreportonthatvitalquestion, AdministrativeLaw,ismadeupandrestedinmajorpartupon jurisprudentialmaterial,3anddecisionssuchastheSunburstOil case,4orErieR.R.v.Tompkins5turnflatlyonanswerstosuch
At least, that some of it is. For it would be a hardy jurisprude who would recommend, indiscriminately, all writings that may have been appearing in the field or under the label of jurisprudence; or indeed who would recommend everything in anything which has appeared (except perhaps the products of his personal pen). The truth is that jurisprudential writing contains, as most writing does-including texts on straight law-its proper human proportion of twaddle, misconception and exaggeration. Indeed, I fear the truth is that the jurisprudential writing of the last ten years may contain a bit more than its proper human proportion of these, for it has been a literature of groping, of half-discovery, and of controversy, and of all of these together; which means that it contains blind leads, exaggerations, waste motion. Yet it contains also sap, health, light. It is a lively literature and a zestful one; it rings with a small boy's enthusiasms, with his "See what I found!", with his shouts of "You're another!", with his swift and sometimes aimless fisticuffs. It has, in a word, more life than form. But it has been growing up fast, its formlessness is assuming shape and usability, its over-enthusiasms are weeding out, it is settling to its job, it is a youngster who has ceased to be merely obstreperous or merely promising, it has become a young fellow who is taking hold and whose work needs to be followed.
