Monday, November 27, 2006

The Nightmare and the Noble Dream

H.L.A. Hart, in his diary, while struggling to formulate an appropriate reply to criticisms of his hugely influential The Concept of Law:
Last night kept awake for a time by panic thought about this! Why not cool: what does it matter to confess errors even as large as this at my age? (Life of errors: why have I had success?)
I find the poignancy of this almost overwhelming. This is a man who had single-handedly revived the entire field of Anglophone legal philosophy, setting the agenda for both general jurisprudence and criminal legal theory ... and he is kept awake at nights by panic at his inability to formulate a full response to his critics, a panic that has him seeing his whole life as one of errors.

(From Nicola Lacey's A Life of H.L.A. Hart)

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