THE DOCTRINE OF STARE DECISIS 637 



language in which their command has been couched. If he cannot 

 find any such command among the books of statutes and ordin- 

 ances in other words, if the subject has not been legislated upon - 

 then usually under present conditions the American lawyer's task is 

 not to ascertain by what rules human beings should be governed 

 in the absence of legislation, but by what rules certain persons of 

 authority have in the past said that they should be governed; the 

 authority of these persons not arising from any transcendent wis- 

 dom or learning of their own, but mainly from the fact that they 

 had been theretofore elected or appointed to a certain public office. 



Nor is it easy to consider any theme suggested by Present Pro- 

 blems of Private Law in the light of an art. The presentation of any 

 given case to a judicial tribunal involves the knowledge and appli- 

 cation of art as well as of science. If literature and rhetoric are 

 arts, and psychology is a science, there is high art in presenting the 

 facts of the case and the true application of the law thereto, in such 

 a blaze of light that they will remain indelible in memory. There 

 is still higher art in so presenting them that something other than 

 the truth may thus reach the judicial mind; for in the practice of 

 the law the highest degree of artistic skill is to conceal the truth, 

 not to exhibit it. But in the body of the law itself, as known in 

 America at least, as it is developed out of the work of legislative 

 committees or litigating counsel and is verified by the signature of 

 governors or presidents, or enunciated by judges, the artistic ele- 

 ment is rarely to be found. 



Among the problems common to the whole world which have 

 been bequeathed to us by forces peculiar to the century just closed, 

 probably those will first come to mind which are the result of eco- 

 nomic progress; changes desirable in the law of corporations, in the 

 law regulating the relations of capital and labor, and in the law of 

 transportation. These, however, belong more to the realm of soci- 

 ology and political economy than to that of law. We can advise the 

 experts of those sections as to what the old law is, what changes 

 can be made in any given state or country without violating its 

 particular constitution, how its constitution can be changed if a 

 change be desirable, and in what verbiage the desired changes should 

 be couched, so that they may be effective; but as to what the 

 substance of the changes should be, this section of the Congress is 

 not the one most appropriate for a discussion. 



Other problems arise from the close communion into which the 

 various peoples of the earth have been brought by the quickening 

 and cheapening of transportation, mixing them together by inter- 

 migration, by intermarriage, by foreign stockholdership, bondholder- 

 ship, and other property ownership, and in so many other ways, 

 But these problems, as practical problems of the present generation. 



