… is from page 4 of James Coolidge Carter’s pioneering 1889 monograph, The Provinces of the Written and the Unwritten Law (original emphases); here, Carter summarizes the main conclusions that he came to after considering the nature of law and of legislation:
[H]uman transactions, especially private transactions, can be governed only by the principles of justice; that these have an absolute existence and cannot be made by human enactment; that they are wrapped up with the transactions which they regulate, and are discovered by subjecting those transactions to examination; that the law is consequently a science depending upon the observation of facts, and not a contrivance to be established by legislation, that being a method directly antagonistic to science.
I was first introduced, years ago, to Carter’s writings by the newly appointed Dean of the Texas A&M School of Law, my good friend Andy Morriss. (Many sincere congratulations on the appointment, Andy – congrats to you and to the fortunate faculty and students at Texas A&M!)
