ABSTRACT
Professor Fuller's essay offers two revealing fictions, one constructed out of material from his childhood, the other from the law reports. This chapter argues that the members of Professor Fuller's group of boys would have been more mature had they been capable of incorporating a misfit: recognition of others engenders growth. It reconsiders the group covered by the first of Professor Fuller's polar types. It is that group of fourth-graders who share what Professor Fuller calls "a very special interest." Professor Fuller recognizes, of course, how the polar types tend to get mixed in practice, as becomes obvious when a dissident group within a church uses the courts to challenge a presumed consensus. Professor Fuller's group of boys is not in fact innocent of formality. There are reasons for finding public legalism, formalism, and amorality at least as appealing as the shared commitments Professor Fuller perceives and, it would appear, at the same time hopes for.
