Book Review: Selected Writings of Benjamin Nathan Cardozo

Abstract

Here under a single cover are the extra-judicial writings of our great philosopher-judge. For the most part this book is made up of well-known materials, including the famous lectures on the judicial process and the witty and gracious talks on law, literature, opinion writing, the new jurisprudence, the "game of the law and its prizes," and the "comradeship of the bar." But there are some new materials of interest: lecture notes from Professor Nicholas Murray Butler's psychology class; a student essay on The Moral Element in Matthew Arnold, suggesting one shaping source for the Justice's beautiful and lucid prose; and a Columbia Commencement Oration on The Altruist in Politics. The last, delivered in 1889, was a vigorous condemnation "alike of communism and of socialism that they thwart the instinct of expansion" or of individual energy and human personality for the "blind, mechanical power of the State" and suggests some intriguing comparisons between these early views and the Justice's later constitutional opinions. Chief Judge Lehman, a close personal friend, contributes a warm and appreciative memorial. And Professor Patterson, fittingly the first Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia,*has a foreword which is an admirable short introduction to Cardozo's juristic philosophy.