ABSTRACT
Law, that is to say, is not the embodiment of justice, or the voice of reason, in a simple and satisfactory way. There is justice in law, there is reason in law, but they are not, and never have been, interchangeable terms. A judge of the nineteenth century could not easily find place for trade union methods in his categories, partly because he had no experience of them, and partly because the atmosphere in which he lived was altogether unfavourable to the claims they put forward. Our law, for the most part, was made by the owners of property in their own interest; and its character necessarily advantages them unduly as compared with their poorer fellows. Law is a part of life, and to be fruitful it must recognize its relationship to those other parts which fix its contours. No man can really understand law who lacks an intimate acquaintance with economics.
