“ If he possesses genuinely this avidity for the pursuit of truth in its manifold variety, for the bare facts of human life, then he will surely attain satisfaction in his research, regardless of their larger interpretations and tendencies,—just as he takes pleasure in the flowers, without attempting to solve the problems of their botanical classification. ”

“ Hence the plan did not propose to include any extracts from works devoted entirely and professedly to the history of any part of the law,—such acknowledged masterpieces, for example, as Sir F. Pollock's and Professor Maitland's History of English Law, or Mr. Digby's History of the Law of Real Property, or Mr. Justice Holmes' The Common Law. But, in several instances, exceptions to this plan were allowed. The impelling reason was the Committee's desire to give a certain symmetry to some topics and periods which would otherwise have been imperfectly represented. ”

“ To the profession, then, and to all its members, whether in school or out of it, we commend this Collection, in the hope that it may bring into general knowledge the main part of the historical achievements which are not yet contained in independent volumes, and that it may help to stimulate a deeper and wider knowledge of the present meaning of our law as seen in the light of its past. Sooner or later the number of those who themselves take an efficient part in historical legal research will have to be, and will be, much increased. ”

“ We must in ourselves see the necessary reason for every fact,—see how it could and must be. We assume that we under like influence should be alike affected, and should achieve the like; and we aim to master intellectually the steps, and reach the same height or the same degradation that our fellow, our proxy, has done. ”

“ There is no age, or state of society, or mode of action, in history to which there is not somewhat corresponding in his life. . . . History must be this or it is nothing: Every law which the State enacts indicates a fact in human nature ”

“ The present state of our knowledge of the history of our law may be likened to an unfinished building, whose foundations have been laid and whose frame and beams have been erected. The roof, the walls, the floors, the furnishings and decoration, are yet lacking. ”

“ Science expands with culture, and, in Matthew Arnold's phrase, "Culture is reading,—but reading with a purpose to guide it, and with system. He does a good work who does anything to help this; indeed, it is the one essential service now to be rendered to education."
In giving account of our labors in the preparation of this Collection, it is our first duty, on behalf of our profession, to thank those authors and publishers who have so freely allowed the reprinting of these essays and chapters. ”

“ He is not to proceed a priori, like the metaphysician. But, while he observes and describes the unfolding of the details, he is to let their general trend be made manifest,—their inter-actions, their developments, their epochs. One after another, the events appear before him; the series unites; it culminates in an Epoch. That distinction between dates which we term an Epoch lies in this, that out of the struggle of the two great opposing forces—the predetermined causation of the past, and the spontaneous variability of the present—new conditions, and thus new periods, gradually emerge. ”

“ It is probable that an- other generation will pass before the final elaboration of the structure can be attempted. Until the Year Books are en- tirely re-edited and printed, most of the work will be of a limited and topical scope. It is now time for our profession to take account of past progress,—to put together and to possess in mastery that which has been so far achieved ”