Brief Notices

BRIEF NOTICES Legal Realism and Justice. By EDWIN N. GARLAN. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941. Pp. xii +161, with bibliography and index. $2.00. Perhaps the outstanding characteristic of this book is its precision and consequent clarity. The title is scrupulously exact; the approach to the realists of the last few decades is philosophically objective in its treatment of "The Problematic in Justice," "The Indeterminate in Justice," and "Legal Justice." It is only in the last two chapters-" Philosophic Justice" and" The Unity of Justice "-that the author's own opinions are unveiled. Clearly the author's knowledge of the realists is that of a master. His critical dissection of individual opinions is the expert penetration of a truly philosophic mind with an edge as sharp as a scalpel. It is astounding to see the dismembered opinion reassemble itself and come to life a totally different thing under the vitalizing influence of Dr. Garlan's kindly interpretations of what the authors must have meant. This happens again and again, providing eloquent testimony to the author's charity and to the brilliant recognition that only by such tortured interpretations could these opinions be squared with sanity. All this gives rise to great hopes from the last two chapters, making more bitter the disillusionment of their philosophic emptiness. Dr. Garlan has a philosophic mind; it is tolerantly mature in the field of criticism, but constructively it brings out no more than the sad penalty paid for intellectual malnutrition. His masters have been too much for him. He cannot escape the limits of legal decisions and rules in his philosophizing on justice; that is to say, he has not yet broken down the barriers that exclude him from the field of philosophy. A prophet would not be taking a serious risk with his reputation in predicting that such a mind would not long be content to remain in such barren fields. Both the bibliography and the index are remarkably well done. Historical Introduction of the Theory of Law. By J. WALTER JoNEs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940. Pp. 800. Beginning with the Greeks and pursuing the diverse theories of law down to modern Russia, Italy, and Germany, the author has produced a pocket encyclopedia of legal theory. Both terms of this description of an excellent book are fully justified. The book is encyclopedic in its scope and detailed references; but it is pocket size in the incredible brevity which gives more than a paragraph to a theory only with rarity and extreme reluctance. 862 BRIEF NOTICES 868 The subject matter is united under eleven wide theories of law: The Civilians; The Historical School and Codes; The Sovereignty Theory; The Law of Nature; Public and Private Law; The Fiction Theory; The Psychological Theories; The Metaphysicians; The Pure Theory; Law and Economic Theory; "Revolutionary Legality." Throughout the study the author has been abstemiously objective. English Political Pluralism. By HENRY MEYER MAGID. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941. Pp. 100, with bibliography and index. $1.25. This book is a study of Figgis, Cole, and Laski as the most prominent figures in the English pluralistic movement. Not historical in its development , the study attempts to evaluate the contribution of this movement to the analysis of freedom. The essay concludes that " the nature of freedom can be discussed more adequately on the basis of a distinction between social freedom (freedom in the community) and political freedom (freedom for parties)." In arriving at this conclusion, the author, after his orderly and profound study of the three pluralists, brushes aside the necessity of natural law and an ultimate good in explaining the unity of law and rushes to the championing of political parties. The party system is more than a system of freedom, it is a form of government, the most satisfactory device yet invented to organize diverse interests in the community for changes of public policy. It seems fairly evident that the author has been badly scared by totalitarianism, so badly, in fact, that he would make of democracy not even a conscientious policeman, as some of his liberalist predecessocs preferred, but a reluctant referee of group brawls. Democracy's proper setting, he says, is the existence of...