Roscoe Pound · 1908
Mechanical Jurisprudence
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- Ben Breen, 2026-09-29; suggested by Claude research agents, 29 Sep 2026
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Q11JUDGMENT
Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?No. against mechanical rule-following. Criticizes judges who deduce decisions mechanically from fixed conceptions regardless of results, and calls for law judged by how it works in practice.
I have referred to mechanical jurisprudence as scientific because those who administer it believe it such. But in truth it is not science at all. We no longer hold anything scientific merely because it exhibits a rigid scheme of deductions from a priori conceptions. In the philosophy of to-day, theories are "instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest." 12 The idea of science as a system of deductions has become obsolete, and the revolution which has taken place in other sciences in this regard must take place and is taking place in jurisprudence also. … We have, then, the same task in jurisprudence that has been achieved in philosophy, in the natural sciences and in politics. We have to rid ourselves of this sort of legality and to attain a pragmatic, a sociological legal science.
OCR corrected
Columbia Law Review 8, no. 8 (Dec 1908), pp. 605-623; JSTOR 1108954; Internet Archive copy listed.