Bieber, Ralph P.

English

Washington University St. Louis: Open Scholarship

Washington University Law Review Volume 13 Issue 2 January 1928 Review of “Law in History and Other Essays,” By Edward P. Cheyney Ralph P. Bieber Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview  Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Ralph P. Bieber, Review of “Law in History and Other Essays,” By Edward P. Cheyney, 13 ST. LOUIS L. REV. 164 (1928). Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol13/iss2/16 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Law Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact digital@wumail.wustl.edu. ST. LOUIS LAW REVIEWLAW IN HISTORY AND OTHER ESSAYS. By Edward P. Cheyney. pp. 174. NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927.This little book should be read by every student of law, history, or politics,and by every thinking layman as well. Written in a clear and entertainingstyle, the six essays that comprise the book provide stimulating and profitablereading for any one who is interested in the past. "They are intended," writesProfessor Cheyney, "to be expressions of opinion about history, not additionsto the knowledge of history." They attempt "to make the present explain thepast and to bring the past to bear on the present." The titles of the essays are:Law in History, The Agitator in History, The Tide of History, Historical Testsof Democracy, What Is History? and History Among the Sciences.The most important of these essays is the first: Law in History. It was Pro-fessor Cheyney's presidential address to the American Historical Association atColumbus, Ohio, December 27, 1923, and was first published in the AmericanHistorical Review, January, 1924. In this essay the author expresses his opinionthat history has not been the result of chance or of voluntary effort on the partof individuals, but, like other sciences, has been subject to certain laws. Theonly way to discover these laws is to use the method of other sciences-to con-sider the phenomena, make a guess at some large principle, test it by a widercomparison-with the facts, and then make a generalization which one can fairlycall a law of history.The author has pursued this method and presents what he calls "guesses" atsome of the laws of history. His "guesses" are six in number. First there is alaw of continuity. All events and institutions come from immediately precedingevents and institutions. Thunderbolts do not come from a clear sky. Secondly,there is a law of permanence through change. Elasticity, adaptiveness, and thecapacity to conform to change are the requisites for the survival of a race, anation, and a type of civilization; the absence of these has brought about theirfall. Thirdly, there is a law of interdependence. The human race is essentiallya unit, and no part of it in history has really progressed by the injury of an-other. Conquest of one people by another has always demoralized the con-querors. Fourthly, there is a law of democracy, a tendency for all governmentto come under the control of all the people. Fifthly, there is a law of freedomoi consent. Human beings are free agents and cannot permanently be com-pelled. It is consent, not force, that has held society together. Sixthly, thereis a law of moral progress. Moral influences in human affairs have becomestronger and more widely extended than material influences. These generaliza-tions, asserts Professor Cheyney, are not ideals which we may hope to attain,but laws whose workings we cannot obviate.LAW IN HISTORY is one of the most important contributions to historical writ-ing in recent years. It is a keen analysis of the forces underlying human de-velopment. Embodying as it does the mature conclusions of a prominent his-torian, it will probably open a new era in historical interpretation.RALPH P. BIEDFWashington University.Washington University Open Scholarship

Review of “Law in History and Other Essays,” By Edward P. Cheyney

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Review of “Law in History and Other Essays,” By Edward P. Cheyney

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