ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the eighteenth-century nexus of law and economics as conceived by Lord Mansfield and Adam Smith may shed some light upon the subsequent divergence of these disciplines as well as clarify their converging roles in a mixed economy. The Law Merchant which Mansfield undertook to make a functional part of the common law of England was of ancient vintage. The life of Lord Mansfield, "the father of commercial law," runs strangely parallel with that of his more famous contemporary, Adam Smith. The basic structure of Mansfield's legal and economic views is generally indicated by his most famous decisions and by his relations with his special merchant juries. The divergence between political economy and jurisprudence in the eighteenth century had many facets. Mansfield, "the first judge to speak the language of the living law," epitomized the long tradition of the application of human reason to the development of functioning institutions to cope with the needs of society.
