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THE JUDGE AS A LEGISLATOR

the hands of its great masters—the method of Mansfield and Marshall and Kent and Holmes.

There have, indeed, been movements, and in our own day, to make the individual sense of justice in law as well as in morals the sole criterion of right and wrong. We are invited, in Gény's phrase, to establish a system of “juridical anarchy” at worst, or of “judicial impressionism” at best.[1] The experiment, or something at least approaching it, was tried not long ago in France. There are sponsors of a like creed among the critics of our own courts.[2] The French experiment, which has become known as "le phénomène Magnaud," is the subject of a chapter in the epilogue to the last edition, published in 1919, of Gény's brilliant book.[3] Between 1889 and 1904, the tribunal of the first

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  1. Gény, op. cit., ed. of 1919, vol. II, p. 288, sec. 196; p. 305, sec. 200.
  2. Bruce, "Judicial Buncombe in North Dakota and Other States," 88 Central L. J. 136; Judge Robinson's Reply, 88 id. 155; "Rule and Discretion in the Administration of Justice, " 33 Harvard L. R. 792.
  3. Gény, op. cit., ed. of 1919, vol. II, p. 287, sec, 196, et seq.