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THE JUDGE AS A LEGISLATOR

is set in motion by some concrete situation, and in order to adapt the law to that situation, the considerations which ought to guide it are, in respect of the final end to be attained, exactly of the same nature as those which ought to dominate legislative action itself, since it is a question in each case, of satisfying, as best may be, justice and social utility by an appropriate rule. Hence, I will not hesitate in the silence or inadequacy of formal sources, to indicate as the general line of direction for the judge the following: that he ought to shape his judgment of the law in obedience to the same aims which would be those of a legislator who was proposing to himself to regulate the question. None the less, an important distinction separates here judicial from legislative activity. While the legislator is not hampered by any limitations in the appreciation of a general situation, which he regulates in a manner altogether abstract, the judge, who decides in view of particular cases, and with reference to problems absolutely concrete, ought, in adherence to the spirit of our modern organiza-

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