MORRIS RAPHAEL COHEN A TRIBUTE TO PROFESSOR MORRIS RAPHAEL COHEN TEACHER e? PHILOSOPHER PUBLISHED BY "THE YOUTH WHO SAT AT HIS FEET" NEW YORK MCMXXVIII The frontisfîece fortrait is from a painting by Joseph Margulies. The original is now in the custody of the College of the City of New York. COPYRIGHT 1928 BY MAX GROSSMAN MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Contents Bibliography, vii Introduction and Dedication, xiii Addresses by Professor Nathan R. Margold, 4 Proffssor Felix Frankfurter, Toastmaster, 7 Dean Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, 9 Professor John Dewey, 17 Dr. Judah L. Magnes, 23 Judge Julian W. Mack, 34 Hon. Bertrand Russell, 46 Hon. Emory R. Buckner, 49 President Frederick B. Robinson, 53 Presentation of Portrait—Max Grossman, 62 Professor Harry Allen Overstreet, 63 Professor Morris R. Oshen, 69 Letters and Greetings Dr. Felix Adler, 14 Dr. John H. Finley, 21 Dr. Alfred E. Cohn, 28 Dean Roscoe Pound, 29 Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo, 36 Walter Lippmann, 42 Dr. Alvin S. Johnson, 42 Professor H. M. Kantorowicz, 42 Y vi Contents Letters and Greetings (^continued) Professor Albert Einstein, 42 Justice Oliver Wendel! Holmes, 45 SUPPLEMENT Letters and Greetings Edwin Arlington Robinson, 85 Professor Robert H. Lowie, 85 Bruno Lasker, 86 Professor Harold J. Laski, 87 Dr. Henry Neumann, 87 Dr. Louis I. Dublin, 88 Judge Alfred Frankenthaler, 89 Essays Dr. Sidney Hook '23, 90 Emest Nagle '23, 95 Robert I. Wolff '24, 98 Paul Weiss '27, 101 The Promise of the Profhets G. H. Palmer, 104 Josiah Royce, 105 William T. Harris, 106 General Committee, 107 Acknowledgment, 109 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PUBLISHED WRITINGS of PROFESSOR MORRIS RAPHAEL COHEN (1901-1927) Compiled, by Nathan Lazar '22 ALLIANCE REVIEW Some ideals and characteristics of Thomas Davidson, 1:2 (1901); 2:290 (1902). The Story of some Remarkable Societies, 2:324 (1902). The East Side, 2:354 (1902); 2:449 (1902). Amos and his Disciples, 2:392 (1902). AMERICAN LAW REVIEW Process of Judicial Legislation, 48:161 (1914). AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW The Formal Bases of Law, by Giorgio del Vecchio, 9:71 (1915)- Modern French Legal Philosophy, 11:137 (1917). AMERICAN REVIEW Human Nature and Conduct, John Dewey, 1:360 (1923), C. C. N. Y. ALUMNUS Philosophy in the Modern Curriculum, Oct. 1921. Myth of Popular Science, Dec. 1925. vii viii Bibliography of Published Writings Primitive Religion, Lowie, April, 1925. Evolution' as Biological Law, March, 1926. The Life of TurgenieflF, Avram Yarmolinsky, Feb., 1927. columbia law review An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law, Roscoe Pound, 22:774 (1922)- Positivism and the Limits of Legal Idealism, March, 1927. current anthropological literature The Mind of Primitive Man, Franz Boas; 1:93 (1912). dial Baseball as a Religion, July 26, 1919. harvard law review Comparative Legal Philosophy, Miraglia, 26:383 (1912). Place of Logic in Law, 29:622 (1916). international journal of ethics Concepts of Philosophy, Ormond, 19:385 (1908). Legal Theories and Social Science, 25:469 (1915). Real and Ideal Forces in Civil Law, 26:347 (1916). Recent Philosophic—Legal literature in French, German and Italian, 26:528 (1916). journal of criminal law Moderne Rechtsprobleme, Joseph Kohler, 5:618 (1914). journal of philosophy The Roots of Reality; E. Belfort Bax, 5:78 (1908). The Conception of Philosophy in Recent Discussion, 7:401 (1910). The Present Situation in the Philosophy of Mathematics, 8:533 (1911). Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten 'Wissenschaften; Paul Natorp, 8:693 (1911). A History of the Cavendish Laboratory, 1871-1910 (Review), 9:79 (1912). Bibliography of Published Writings ix A letter, 10:27 (1913). The New Realism (Review, 10:197 (1913). Jurisprudence as a Philosophical Discipline, 10:225 (1913). Supposed contradiction in the diversity of secondary qualities— a reply, 10:510 (1913)- Rule vs. Discretion, 11:208 (1914). Qualities, Relations and Things, 11:617 (1914). History vs. Value, 11:701 (i 914). Charles Peirce and a Tentative Bibliography of his Published Writings, 13:726 (1916). The Use of the Words, Real and Unreal, 13:635 (1916). A Budget of Paradoxes, Augustus De Morgan, 14:107 (1917). Interests served by the law and the methods of their evaluation, 14:189 (1917). The Distinction between the Mental and the Physical, 14:261 (1917)- Mechanism and Causality in Physics, 15:365 (1918). Herman Cohen, 15:587 (1918). Subject Matter of Formal Logic,' 15:673 (1918). Communal Ghosts and other Perils in Social Philosophy, 16:673 (1919)- Bibliotheca Chemico-Mathematica, compiled by H. Z. and H. C. S., 19:275 (1922). The Spirit of the Common Law, Roscoe Pound, 20:155 (1923). On the Logic of Fiction, 20:477 (1923). A History of Magic and Experimental Science during the First thirteen Centuries of Our Era; Lynn Thorndike, 21:456 (1924)-. Le Sorgenti Irrazionali del Pensiero, Nicola Abbagnano, 21:554 (1924). Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the History of Philosophy, G. P. Conger, 21:556 (1924). The Insurgence Against Reason, 22:113 (1925)- The Rivals and Substitutes for Reason, 22:141 (1925). The Rivals and Substitutes for Reason (continued), 22:180 (1925)- MENORAH JOURNAL Intellectual Love of God (reprinted in part from Chronicon Spinozanum), 11:332 (1925). X Bibliography of Published Writings NEW REPUBLIC Intellectual Leadership in America, Nov. 14, 1914. Concerning Justice, L. A. Emery, 2:107 The Bill of Rights Theory, 2:222 (1915). The Bill of Rights Again, 2:272 (1915). Our Knowledge of the External World, Bertrand Russell, 3:338 (1915)- Shall the Judges Make the Laws?, 3:31 (1915). The Legend of Magna Charta, 3:136 (1915). Immanuel Kant, H. S. Chamberlain, 4:79 (1915). American Philosophy, Woodbridge Riley, 4:106 (1915). New Leadership in Law, 6:148 (1916). Hellenic Civilization (Review), 6:221 (1916). The Church, John Huss, 7:23 (1916). John Dewey's Philosophy, 8:118 (1916). Josiah Royce, 8:264 (1916). Democracy Inspected, 8:303 (1916). Magna Charta and other addresses, William D. Guthrie, 9: Nov. 18, 1916, Page 18. Elihu Root, on government, 10:109 (1917). Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, Galileo Galilei, ii:8s (1917)- The Contingency of the Laws of Nature, Emile Boutroux, 13:191 (1917). Platonism, Paul Elmer More, 16:143 (1918). The Need for a Modern University, 17:130 (1918). American Problems of Reconstruction, Edited by Elisha M. Friedman, 18:155 (1919). Zionism: Tribalism or Liberalism? 18:182 (1919). Portugal, Old and Young, George Young, 18:426 (1919). An Ethical Philosophy of Life, Felix Adler, 19:254 (1919). A System of Physical Chemistry, W. C. M. Lewis, 20:65 (1919). The Abolition of Inheritance, Harlon Eugene Read, 20:129 (1919). On American Philosophy— 1. The Idealistic Tradition and Josiah Royce, 20:148 (1919). 2. William James, 20:255 (1919). Bibliography of Published Writings xi 3. John Dewey and the Chicago School, 22:82 (1920). 4. George Santayana, 23:221 (1920). Heine, 20: Nov. 26, 1919, part 2, 15. A Slacker's Apology, 21:19 (1919)* Judas Iscariot (a letter), 21:172 (1920). Einstein's Theory of Relativity— I. Time and Space, 21:228 (1920). II. The Law of Gravitation and the More General Theory of Relativity, 21:341 (1920). Morale, the Supreme Standard of Life and Conduct, G. Stanley Hall, 24:126 (1920). Collected Legal Papers, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 25:294 (1921). The Significance of Napoleon, 26:311 (1921). Roads to Einstein (Review of 11 books), 27:172 (1921). Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law, Sir J. G. Frazer, 28:51 (1921); 28:112 (1921) a correction. Questions in Einstein, 28:136 (1921). Dante as a Moral Teacher, 28:181 (1921). Impressionian and Authority in Literary Criticism, 28:252 (1921). Dante and the Modern Reader, 28:303 (1921). Limitations of Political Science, 31:111 (1922). English and American Philosophy since 1800, A. K. Rogers, 32:204 (1922). Dogmatism in Name of Science, 32:255 (1922). An Introduction to Philosophy by Wilhelm Windelband, 32:341 (1922). Ways of Current Philosophy, 32: Sep. 27, 1922, Literary Supplement, 8. Law and Reason, 33: Nov. 29, 1922, Book Section, 4. American Individualism, Herbert Hoover, 33:353 (1923). Spanish Liberalism, 39:278 (1924). Legalism and Clericalism, 41:15 (1924). Social Policy and the Supreme Court (letter), 43:195 (1925). The Cell in Development and Heredity, Edmund B. Wilson, 43:241 (1925). F. H. Bradley, Victorian Master of Logic, 44:148 (1925). Spinoza: A Prophet of Liberalism, 50:164 (1927). xii Bibliography of Published Writings PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW Principia Mathematica, Whitehead and Russell, 21:87 (1912). Law as a Means to an End, Rudolf Von Jhering, 23:557 (1914). The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico, Benedetto Croce, 23:677 (Í914). Les Étapes de la Philosophie Mathématique, Léon Brunschvicg, 24:81 (1915)-. Jus Naturale Redivivium, 25:761 (1916). Neo Realism and Josiah Royce, 25:378 (1916). Krabbe's The State. SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY Myth About Bacon and the Inductive Method, 23:50 (1926). SURVEY Court of Appeals (letter) 26:569 (1911). Liberalism and the Russian Mind, 49-731 (1923). WORLD TO-MORROW Have Ideas Prestige Among Us? 8:202 (1925). YALE LAW REVIEW Rational Basis of Legal Institutions, by various authors, 33:892 (1924). MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES Later Philosophy, Chapter 17, in Cambridge History of Ameri¬ can Literature, 3:226—265. "Philosophy," leading article in Monroe's Cyclopedia of Edu¬ cation. Thomas Davidson, article in Monroe's Cyclopedia of Education. American Philosophy, article in "On American Books," edited by Francis Hackett. Introduction to "Philosophy in the Development of the Law," Tourtouion, P. D. Introduction to "Chance, Love and Logic" by C. S. Peirce. Chapter on the Natural and Social Sciences in the volume "The Relations of the Social Sciences" edited by Ogburn and Goldenweiser. INTRODUCTION AND DEDICATION On October 15, 1927, more than a thousand people gathered at the Hotel Astor to do honor to Pro¬ fessor Morris Raphael Cohen, who had completed a quarter century of teaching in Mathematics and in Philosophy at the College of the City of New York. Students, colleagues and friends came and created a unique festival. It was suggested by Dr. Felix Adler that an at¬ tempt be made to capture in the written word the .spirit of the evening and that a transcript of the addresses be printed, so that this tribute to a teacher —and memorable because it was to a teacher—^be more lasting in the memory, and that those who were riot present may catch some breath of the love¬ liness of the occasion. With that thought in view, this little volume was printed. While philosophy and the teaching of philosophy were the themes of the evening, the medium was that of poesy arid drama, and it is so that we wish to set the stage: A host of faces. A brilliant assembly. If it were xiii xiv Introduction and Dedication possible for a stage director to light up the faces of people with intellectual eagerness and consecration, such would be the setting. Here was a group of friends with the name of Thomas Davidson upon their lips, here a group reminiscing of classes at the Educational Alliance. Right close was a table of brilliant young philosophy teachers of Columbia University, there a venerated name of an anthro¬ pologist, a sculptor, a judge. Grouped here were distinguished teachers from various universities, lead¬ ers of ethical societies and seminaries, jurists, and scientists J and everywhere—classmates, colleagues and students of Professor Cohen, honoring him and honoring the College of the City of New York that gave rich opportunity for study and scholarship; At the right of the dais, strangely out of place, yet so intrinsically part of this tribute, sat the father and mother of Professor Cohen, speaking a difFerent language, living in a different world, looking at this gathering with eyes eighty years old, eyes misty with love and pride, spanning the years of Yiddish Ghettos of tragedy and despair. They looked strangely bewildered at this son who was theirs, be¬ gotten and nurtured by them, but who had travelled into lands foreign and yet universal. Introduction and Dedication xv What was it in the man that was being honored? What was it in the circumstances that created fervor? Here in New York City, the busy hive of practical industry, buzzing with' the continual hunger for more satisfaction of desire, where the king of in¬ dustry is the king of men and the political states¬ man is honored in the market place, where religion builds its temples on the Stock Exchange, men and women came to honor a scholar hidden among his books, living simply and seeking no utility in his quiet research. In struggle and frustration he kept true to an inner light of reason and by that power born to a lover of Truth, he gathered young men about him and kindled many hearts and minds. That evening the philosopher-teacher was king! It has been my privilege to be a student of Profes¬ sor Cohen. Method or content in teaching is fre¬ quently only a vehicle to the personality of the teacher communicating itself to the students. It is particularly truê in Professor Cohen's case. His class room may be likened to a laboratory where ideas are tested for rational validity. There are no airy vapor- ings. There is no false stimulus of inspirational talk, that by its quick disappearance leaves a void be¬ getting only disillusionment.. It is true that more ocvi Introduction and Dedication frequently the tests dissolved myths—and woe is me—frequently a "Weltanschauung" built meticu¬ lously in adolescence crumbled. In the beginning, I was conscious of an acidic wit that not only dissolved but bit too sharply, that destroyed and did not en¬ ergize recreation. But soon there came the realiza.- tion of the profound earnestness of this seeker for genuine ideas. One forgave the surgeon's sharp knife for the healing process thereafter. One understood the curative x-ray that pierced to the wound. A keen logic sought the foundation of ethics and law, of science and philosophy, but it was not a sterile logic. It became fruitful through the penetration of the one mysticism that logic readily accepts as its love—a faith in its power to reveal truth. Logic is then productive of harmonies that are as assthetically satisfying as is sweet music. Professor Cohen in his address explained his task as an attempt "to relieve the student of needless tra¬ ditional baggage" and while he leaves him in the desert, he has at least taken him "out of the Egypt of Bondage." Let not the statement create an impres¬ sion of an atmosphere of desert and whirling sand. I felt when I came into the class room that I came to a crystal clear spring where the waters were cold Introduction and Dedication xvii and refreshing. The "climate of opinion" and the "temperature of ideas" were not suitable for pas¬ sionate prejudices and half-baked theories. A long cool draught at the fountain head cleared the mind of cobwebs and musty ideas. We do not always seek rational answers to the perplexing problems of life. The pitiless forces of circumstance frequently tire our weary minds and hearts and throw us into a religious solitariness that yearns for a revelation beyond mortal logic. But we dare not find solace in beautifully wrought systems of philosophy when, at the foundation source, as¬ sumptions are laid for corner stones that are inher¬ ently false and crumbling. Living ideas are crystal¬ lized into dead forms. Rather a twig here and a branch there, with a seed somewhere to grow into scientific philosophies. These are the methods and the seemingly destructive probings in Professor Cohen's courses on Ethics and Logic, in Philosophy of Science, of Law, of Civilization. There is a consciousness among Professor Cohen's students of belonging to a favored experience. A bond unites us as a beloved community of the Stu¬ dents of Professor Cohen. We shall wander in many fields and by-paths, but there will always be a clear scvni Introduction and Dedication call for truth and tolerance. We can not help but breathe a simplicity and candor that is of the essence of our teacher Morris Cohen. One word more and that in dedication. In a con¬ gratulatory letter, Dr. John L. Elliott wrote, "I do not know when I have attended anything that gave me more courage and satisfaction than the Cohen Dinner." Courage! It sounded strange coming from a brave ethics teacher, and for more than thirty years, Headworker at the Hudson Guild, among the Irish! Courage—^but that was the same word used by Pro¬ fessor Cohen in agreeing to be publicly honored and thus serve as testimony to others. He felt that there were many able teachers j this tribute might give them courage, knowing that there is a responsive appreciation. Our educational institutions have become danger¬ ously regimented. Our liberals have became weary. There is enough call for loyalty, but little for loyalty to the precious traditions of freedom and tolerance. Teachers are hesitant to guide youth in independent search for truth. Those that make the effort are unhappy because they are lonely. It is to them we call "Courage!" The pattern of this tribute to Pro¬ fessor Cohen we thus wish to multiply and enrich a Introduction and Dedication xisC thousandfold. We dedicate this volume to teachers everywhere who in unostentatious ways are kindling flames in the hearts and minds of their pupils, zeal¬ ous but for one thing (the crown of great teachers, more frequently the crown of thorns), a critical truth and the freedom to seek it. May we emphasize this dedication with the words of Professor Dewey. All of us who honor Professor Cohen do so "because we feel that in writing our¬ selves down his friend, we are in some measure also identifying ourselves with the friends of truth, the friends of freedom, the friends of that freedom which is both the parent and the progeny of truth, the friends of that truth which alone makes human¬ ity free." Max Grossman 'i6 I902-I927 TESTIMONIAL DINNER given by Students and Friends to PROFESSOR MORRIS RAPHAEL COHEN Professor of Philosophy at the COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK Saturday, October 15, 1927 HOTEL ASTOR, NEW YORK CITY Max Grossman It is a great honor to welcome you all at this happy gathering testifying to our love and respect for Pro¬ fessor Morris R. Cohen. A telegram from the Stu¬ dent Body will most appropriately open the cere¬ monies. "Students of the College of the City of New York send their congratulations on the completion twenty- five years of service to the student body." Student Council We beg to change the procedure of the formal program and call upon a former student to give you words of welcome and also to introduce the Toastmaster for the evening. Nathan R. Margold of the class of 1919 has served with high distinction in the Federal District Attorney's office and is now Professor Margold at the Harvard Law School. He thus makes a fine liaison officer between Professor Cohen, his teacher, 3 4 Morris Raphael Cohen and Professor Frankfurter, his colleague. I take great pleasure in introducing Professor Nathan R. Margold, Professor Nathan R. Margold Mr. Grossman, Professor Cohen, Ladies and Gen¬ tlemen: It is my happy privilege on behalf of the former students of Professor Cohen, who are ten¬ dering him this dinner tonight, to extend to you all our most cordial welcome. There are others more able and worthy than I, outstanding in the philosophical, juridical and educational fields of our day and in¬ deed of all time, who soon will address you, and will express appreciation of Professor Cohen's merit as a scholar and of his contributions to science, law, philosophy and education} but I doubt whether there is any one here tonight who owes Professor Cohen a greater personal debt than I, or any one here who could be happier or who could be as happy at the opportunity to say even a few words in grateful ac¬ knowledgment and appreciation. Of course, I am but one of a great many who have received their first impulse towards scholarship through their contact with Professor Cohen} but Professor Margold 5 therein lies the importance of the service which Pro¬ fessor Cohen has performed as a teacher. During his twenty-five years at City College he has trained thousands of students in the fundamentals of scien¬ tific, logical thinking. Those who have turned to the legal profession, like myself, owe him a special debt of gratitude for the training they received in habitual modes of reasoning which are peculiarly helpful in the solution of legal problems. In my own class at the Havard Law School there were two graduates of City College who had done rather indifferently in the college generally, but better in Professor Cohen's courses, and whose asso¬ ciation with him gave them a tremendous advantage over their classmates at the Law School. They, I know, trace their outstanding success in the law, both in school and in practice, to Professor Cohen's early influence in shaping their mental habits. What is true of them is true of many, many others —if not at the Harvard Law School then at other schools} if not in the law then in other professions and occupations. In every walk of life they have carried with them the benefit of their training in his classes, enjoying it themselves and spreading the ef¬ fect of it to others. For this service of incalculable 6 Morris Raphael Cohen value we here render tribute} and I know that I ex¬ press the sentiment of all of Professor Cohen's students, whether present here tonight or not, when I wish him continued success and hope that this din¬ ner will be only one of several quarter-century dinners which we and his students in the future will have the privilege of tendering in his honor. My task tonight is doubly pleasant, for it em¬ braces the duty of introducing our Toastmaster, who, at law school, carried on for me the intellectual training which Professor Cohen had begun. Profes¬ sor Frankfurter has too long and too ably busied himself in behalf of public legal movements and in the aid of those especially oppressed by miscarriages of justice to need introduction anywhere, and it is not in that capacity that I wish to introduce him tonight} nor is it in the capacity of the great legal scholar and teacher that he undoubtedly is. Rather let us identify ourselves with his greatness} let us greet him as one of us, a product of our college and student-friend and roommate of our beloved Professor Cohen. As such, ladies and gentlemen, I take great pleasure in introducing to you my master, colleague and friend, Felix Frankfurter. Professor Frankfurter 7 The Toastmaster Those who guide the destinies of this dinner must explain to you why a mere lawyer should have the chair on such a philosophic occasion, but inasmuch as nothing irrational is alien to a philosopher, at least Morris Cohen will not demur to the selection. An otherwise discerning woman, one of those multitudinous admirers of the guest, asked me, "Why this dinner? Why a dinner for Morris Cohen?" I hope she is here to have the question face her in all its stark irrelevance. But the question was put so challengingly that I had to think for an an¬ swer, and if there is one thing that I suppose we owe to Morris Cohen it is candor, so, if I am compelled to give answer I should say we are here tonight to celebrate the achievements of a useless life. For Cohen has not decreased costs; he has not in¬ creased production; he has not eliminated waste— aye, he has not even written a best seller. He has given his life to contemplation, and to an extraor¬ dinary measure he has stirred the taste and the talent for contemplation in others. He has asked for the meaning of things and he has led us in all our diverse 8 Morris Raphael Cohen ways to ask the meanings of our callings, and pro¬ fessions and activities. And so, in good truth, measured by the ordinary criteria, his is a useless life—the most useful of all possible lives. Dinners, like every other form of human mani¬ festation, are both for weal and for woej they are abused and used. But seldom are they used so sig¬ nificantly as your presence here tonight testifies. I am merely, as it were, the showman, the Balieff of a Chauve-Souris. In addition my task is to be time¬ keeper. I am admonished to convey with sweet per¬ suasiveness that time, at least tonight, is finite. I am also admonished to remind the speakers who are to follow of a rather canny injunction of the Talmud, when it suggests that at funerals,—^the reference is not a happy one,—when it suggests that the orators at funerals should bear in mind that there is a judg¬ ment day not only for the deceased but also for the orators. However, it is Morris Cohen's proud boast to believe that he does not rank modesty high in the hierarchy of virtues. I think his boast will be put to the test tonight. I shall ask him who was, as it were, the promoter, the begetter of Cohen, the philosopher, to tell us Professor Frankfurter g what he has to say of his offspring. It is Dean Wood- bridge who started Morris Cohen off on his useless career, and it is, thanks to Dean Woodbridge's "Journal," that I suppose some of the most impor¬ tant utterances of Professor Cohen have been given to the world. I say "given to the world." It is an awfully narrow and meager world that the "Jour-, nal" administers to. An English philosophic friend of mine, who had to come to America to discover the "Journal," said —I do not know whether he is right, Mr. Russell.? —"There isn't a copy of the 'Journal' at Oxford." Perhaps there is one at Cambridge. At all events, he thought that the "Journal" was a cemetery of buried talent. Dean Woodbridge, possibly not without de¬ sign, has not made the "Journal" a best seller. If it were a best seller it couldn't be a depository of best minds. Dean Woodbridge. Dean Frederick J. E. Woodbridge Mr. Toastmaster, my one-time pupil, friends and admirers of our much loved guest: There is an old Latin adage which warns us that of the dead we should say only what is good. I suppose that we may 10 Morris Raphael Cohen naturally infer from this that of the living we may say what we please, but there is, I fear, a still more subtle implication involved in the old adage, which may however require very little wit to discover, namely, that if too much good is said of the living, the implication as to his living status may not be wholly complimentary. It is so natural to speak only good of Professor Cohen that I very much hope that someone before the evening, is over will speak much evil of him, in order that he may not be ushered too speedily into immortality. I might have taken this task upon my¬ self, for I havé known Professor Cohen as a student, and teachers can very well say something else than what is good of their students. Unfortunately, however, I have to confess that Cohen was a good student. He pays me from time to time a very affectionate compliment, which I gladly receive in the spirit in which it is given, but which my sober judgment warns me that I ought to put aside. He frequently speaks of me as his teacher, but, although I have addressed him at the beginning of what I have to say tonight as my one-time pupil, I can never think of him as a pupil of mine. I think of him rather as a fellow student. He and I, so to Dean Woodbridge ii speak, entered Columbia University together. It was, if I remember rightly, my first year there and it was his first year there. We started out, conse¬ quently, upon a joint enterprise. I say he was a good student, but it is not as a good student that I re¬ member him. It is rather the atmosphere which he with others did so much to create in those early years, the intellectual temper which he brought to what we were doing. In my experience I have come to distinguish be¬ tween two types of students of philosophy, those who love ideas and those who are anxious about them. There is a great deal of difference there. The ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem to some of us, which have often stirred human minds, are to some philosophers interesting on their own ac¬ count. They may care very little about what those ideas amount to, whether they are true or whether they are false j they love the ideas because they are in some shape or other expressions of the human mind or of human feelings. I may illustrate this by one of the pitiful experi¬ ences from my own career. A few years ago,, stimu¬ lated largely by the writings of Henry Adams, I be¬ came very much interested in the Blessed Virgin. I 12 Morris Raphael Cohen spent considerable time studying her. I was very much impressed by a remark of Henry Adams that she had been a force, and so I prepared three lectures as a result of my study. I wanted very much to de¬ velop this idea of a force and when I got through I was very proud of my lectures. I thought I had done something very splendid and very significant and I was naturally curious to know what efFect I had pro¬ duced upon the class. Although I have a good deal of egotism and vanity, I disliked asking openly about the result, so I resorted to devious methods and in¬ stituted a rather clandestine inquiry as to the efFect I had produced on the class. I said I thought the lec¬ tures were splendid, but the report I got back was that I had aroused a violent discussion in the class as to whether I was a Roman Catholic or not. My students seemed to be anxious about ideas and especially anxious about my own. Professor Cohen was not a student of that kind. We have gotten the habit of listening to what he has to say, whether we agree with him or not, because we are pretty sure that what he has to say is reflected against the back¬ ground of competent knowledge in the field about which he is talking. I may illustrate the contrast by another experience Dean Woodbridge 13 of a young economist who appeared before our de¬ partment for his preliminary examination for the de¬ gree of Doctor of Philosophy. He was asked by a competent economist, whose name I would dearly love to utter but will refrain, certain questions about some bygone theories in economics. This young stu¬ dent was a very brilliant fellow, much valued by his teachers, and he replied, "I don't take any stock in those theories." The examiner replied, "Neither do I, but I expect you to know what it is in which you take no stock." Professor Cohen was from the beginning of my knowledge of him a student who always knew what it was in which he took no stock. It was this atmosphere which he so largely helped in creating, the atmos¬ phere of love of ideas rather than anxiety about them, which I remember and which makes it impossible for me to associate him in my memory as a student of minej I should rather be known as a student of his. The Toastmaster I am sure Professor Cohen and the rest of us miss one presence tonight particularly, the presence of Dr. Felix Adler, who had so large a share in the 14 Morris Raphael Cohen early disputatious years of Cohen's philosophic ap¬ prenticeship. Dr. Elliott will be good enough to read to us a few words that Dr. Adler has sent in his absence. Dr. Elliott I have the pleasure of reading this letter from Dr. Adler, who wanted very much to come. Dear Mr. Grossman: My obligations on Saturday next are of such a nature as to make it impossible for me to attend the dinner which you and others are tendering to Profes¬ sor Cohen. But I wish to be at least represented by this written message. There is a certain mood in which one is tempted to chant the virtue of "no banquets," no chorus of praise, no efitaphy (pardon the pun), in the pres¬ ence of a man still living} instead, suffering him to proceed on his noble way unmolested by our super¬ fluous eulogies. For after all Morris Cohen is in the best sense a self-made man. Self-reliance in the Emersonian sig¬ nification has been his keynote. He has risen from lesser to higher levels by dint of sheer merit. If Dr. Adler 15 he has arrived, it is due to an intelligence exception¬ ally firm while delicate in its touch, to an unquench¬ able thirst for wisdom, and to a character marked out by sterling integrity, dignity and independence. And self-reliance is admirable. No one who has ever amounted to anything in the World has asked leave of others to become what it was in his nature to become and be. Nevertheless, there is a difference between relying on others in. the sense of leaning on others, and on the other hand welcoming the judgment of others in the appraisement of what one is in the way of becoming. And this kind of appraisement is especially welcome at three periods of a man's career —at the beginning, at the end, and in the middle. In youth, when there is just the promise and as yet no performance, the friendly eye of an older man who has the insight to detect the hidden prom¬ ise is a boon of infinite value. In the middle of a man's career, when the curve of life is approaching the zenith, when the promise has unfolded, when valid performance is in evidence, then the discrimi¬ nating assessments of friendly onlookers is worth hav¬ ing for the encouragement it gives toward still larger performance. And at the end of the career some con¬ sensus of the competent shall strike the balance of i6 Morris Raphael Cohen the man's life, and assign to him the place that be¬ longs to him. On this Saturday evening you are performing the second of the two functions I have mentioned, you are gathering around him as he stands midway— on the day, so to speak, of his silver wedding with philosophy, bidding him cheer and good speed on his way. I join with you heartily and express my own wishes for him in the students' salutation: "Vivat— crescat—floreat!" May he have length of lifej may he continue to grow into the fuller stature of his personality, and may he have the happiness of throw¬ ing into the soil of other minds seeds of thought like his own which will flourish there in flower and fruit unlike his own. Yours sincerely, Felix Adler The Toastmaster To a mere layman, philosophy seems to be an ad¬ venture that never makes port and therefore there are many routes and many pilots to the unattainable shores. The agreements en route between Professor Cohen and Professor Dewey make their divergences Professor Dewey all the more teasing. If a pluralistic universe like philosophy can have a single head, then, surely, if not its head, then at the head stands Professor Dewey. Professor John Dewey Friends, it is perhaps natural on an occasion when we are commemorating—I will not say twenty-five years of history but twenty-five years of life—^that our minds should be led backward, and so my mind has been running, as I sat here, into past years. I am perhaps older not merely than our guest, our hon¬ ored guest, but than most of my colleagues here. So I have been led to recall, without derogation to the credit which my colleague, Mr. Woodbridge, has in bringing up Morris Cohen or that which belongs to Felix Adler, certain of his other early teachers: Josiah Royce, William James of Harvard, and that academic outlaw, Thomas Davidson. I have been led to think of this living stream, into the current of which Morris Cohen was taken up, of which he became a part and which through him has passed on into the lives of so many others of us. I think not merely of these individuals, these per- i8 Morris Raphael Cohen sonalities who cannot be present in the body but are certainly now present in the mind and spirit, not merely of Morris Cohen and some of the rest of us, but of all who have in any way come under his in¬ tellectual influence. I think also of the multitude of others in the past who have entered into his life and through his into the lives of those who are meet¬ ing here tonight, and into those of the countless other students of his who are not able to be here: of the scholars, rabbis, learned men of Russia and of the Orient. Perhaps, I, as an old man, am going too far back into the past, but it seems to me that the great significance of an occasion like this is that we may realize how real and how continuous are the influences which hold the intellectual and moral life of men together. These people, many of them from far lands and strange countries, have become in ways that none of us can realize—we do not even know the names of many of them—are even now a vital influence because of the candor, the intellectual en- ergy, vigor and independence of a man like Morris Cohen. If I were speaking of some persons I might seem in this emphasis upon the past to be derogating some- Professor Dewey iç what from Cohen's intellectual independence, but you all know him too well to give any such interpre¬ tation to my remarks. It is not only that men like Josiah Royce, Wil¬ liam James and Thomas Davidson, to mention only those who have gone, were themselves men of inde¬ pendence, who stood upon their own intellectual feet, men of very diverse views,^—that they were, as the old New England phrase had it, not only men of character, but they were themselves characters, and so could not turn out any mere echo or phonographic repetition of their own views,—^but that Morris Cohen has so amply demonstrated his own intel¬ lectual independence. In fact, I might almost say that the only thing I have against him is his undue fear lest somebody else agree with him. It seems to me sometimes a little morbid j in an¬ other person almost inhuman. It is a wonderful thing that a person who is so thoroughly a democrat, and so thoroughly a believer in democracy, can have such a tremendous respect for minorities as Morris Cohen has. On the whole, the smaller the minority the more favor it is looked upon by him. It is his çandor, straightforwardness^ his critical love of truth. 20 Morris Raphael Cohen as well as of scholarship, that we honor in him this evening. And because of this the stream of the past which is passing through him is a living stream. The thousands of pupils whom he has taught, so many of whom are here tonight to do him honor, so many of whom would gladly be here, have come here to participate in that spirit of candor, of straightfor¬ wardness, of honesty, without pretentious parade, which has marked his life. Wherever there has been any oppression, there the oppressed have found a friend in Morris Cohen. Wherever there have been elements that were un¬ popular merely for some conventional reason, they have found a friend and a sympathizer in him. I am sure that consciously or unconsciously all of us, who have come here to do him honor this evening, have done it not merely from personal affection and from loyalty to a friend, but because we feel that in writ¬ ing ourselves down his friend, we are in some meas¬ ure also identifying ourselves with the friends of truth, the friends of freedom, the friends of that freedom which is both the parent and the progeny of truth, the friends of that truth which alone makes humanity free. Dr. Finley 21 The Toastmaster It is a wise university president who knows whence to get wisdom. Unfortunately that combination of poet and pedestrian who first presided over the Col¬ lege of the City of New York when Cohen came to teach there, is not with us in person. It is not for nothing that John H. Finley is a poet and pedes¬ trian. And so, in his pedestrian way, he had the poetic insight to ask Royce and James and George Herbert Palmer what they thought of Morris Cohen when he got through with his doctorate at Harvard, and they told him. I wouldn't dare tell you some of the things I could quote of what they said because it would transcend even Morris Cohen's appetite for the truth. Nevertheless, I have asked Dean Brown- son former Dean Brownson—he still is my own Professor of Greek Brownson—^to read a letter from Dr. Finley. October 15, 1927 Dear Professor Morris Cohen: I fully expected to be a guest at your great feast tonight with those who wish to show you gratitude 22 Morris Raphael Cohen and honor. But I find, at almost the last hour, that I cannot. I am mightily disappointed and for two reasons. I wished to add my personal word of ap¬ preciation and praise (and my past-perfect official word) to what others might say. I wished also (and this is properly denied me) to turn a little of the credit for your distinguished career to my own ac¬ count. However, I deserve no credit for doing what I thought was for the good of the College, which we both love. I am bound to say that I had some hesitation when you, who had been a tutor or instruc¬ tor in mathematics, were proposed for a position in philosophy. But I remember to this day the letters about you from William James and Josiah Royce and others and that after seeing them I had no ques¬ tion as to your fitness in philosophy (or anything else). I wish that these letters might be recovered (as I have in vain tried to do to-day) and put of record in the minutes of this meeting. I have often said that I have never read higher commendation of any student from such high authority. You have ful¬ filled the promise of these great prophets. What more can I say except that you have put yourself by your merit in the class with the man of your own race, Mordecai, whom King Ahasuerus delighted to Dr. Magnes 23 honor? As the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad over his recognition, so this city, whose son you are, is proud of you and glad of this recognition of your worth and your service. Sincerely yours, John H. Finley The Toastmaster Good fortune brings to our midst at this time a fledgling university president. He is still too recent a university president to be inured in bad habits. Give him time, and he may run the common lot. Dr. Magnes. Dr. Judah L. Magnes In days gone by when some of those minorities that Professor Dewey spoke of contained among others both Professor Cohen and myself. Professor Cohen was wont to reveal to me some of the secrets of that mystic philosophic profession of which he is so notable an adornment. He told me that once he had been invited by the Menorah Society of the City College to deliver a lecture on the Jewish problem. 24 Morris Raphael Cohen There was a large gathering o£ eager youth to hear Professor Cohen, and—lo and behold—at last a Jewish subject. And when all had gathered together, Professor Cohen proceeded to apply his famous peda¬ gogic method of shock. After being introduced he said, "I have been asked to speak on the Jewish problem. Gentlemen, there is no Jewish problem" —and thereupon he sat down. After great consternation and shuffling to and fro and whispering between the awe-stricken Chair¬ man and other members of the committee. Professer Cohen, in the goodness of his heart, rose again and proceeded to explain why there was no Jewish prob¬ lem, and he thereupon delivered himself of certain conceptions about the Jews, which, so I was informed, proved to others that not only was there a Jewish problem but that Professor Cohen knew all about it before he had begun. Now whether or not there be a Jewish problem, I venture to say that you will agree with me that this pedagogic method of shock in relation to such a prob¬ lem could have been devised only by a Jewish mind, and whether or not there be a Jewish problem I think perhaps that Professor Cohen will agree that Dr. Magnes 25 there has been and that there perhaps is some such thing as Jewish mind that has coursed through him and that courses through his students, sometimes even unbeknown to the Professor himself. I do not know what his views as to the new He¬ brew University of Jerusalem may be. Perhaps he would say, applying his method of shock, there is no Hebrew University, and perhaps I might agree with him. At any rate, there is a Hebrew University in essence and in embryo, and it would be a great honor to the Hebrew University if Professor Cohen were to consent to come to us and explain to us some¬ thing about the Hebraic spirit which also courses through him in his passionate love of righteousness and of justice, that Hebraic spirit of which the He¬ brew prophets were great proponents and of whom Professor Cohen is a worthy child. The Hebrew University wants, if it can, to bring about a concentration of Jewish mind, of Jewish philosophic insight, and it hopes that every one who comes there on its teaching staff, be he this or that, may at least be a philosopher or philosophizer. In the course of time it may perhaps be given to the He¬ brew University to make a new contribution to human 20 Morris Raphael Cohen knowledge, to lend some color to the meaning of reality, to give something of value to those who are searching after philosophic truth. Professor Cohen, Jerusalem is a place for con¬ templation. It is near the desert and one can go out into the desert and be all alone and contradict all the world without fear of being contradicted. We would welcome you there in order that you and we together might make our contribution to knowledge, so that knowledge might fill the earth, so that the intellectual love of God might penetrate the hearts, even as the waters cover the sea. The Toastmaster Philosophy once held sway over the mind, and once upon a time things were studied in their relation. But the feverish and meticulous specialization of learning in the 19th century begot mutilation of mind because of the jealous rivalry, the exclusiveness among studies that were after all merely diflFerentia- tions often for pedagogic reasons, due to the neces¬ sities of work, considering that there were only twenty-four hours in a day. The significant thing about my profession—and it seems to be, from the glimpses one catches, true of other professions-—i§ Professor Frankfurter 2^ that this mutilation of mind has brought its own defeat, and, happily, philosophy is again beginning to hold sway in the effort to see things in their rela¬ tion. The sterility of our law until fairly recent days, but for the extraordinary, prophetic writings of Mr. Justice Holmes, is amply attested in decisions about which I dare say Mr. Louis Marshall and I would not agree. At all events, the fact is that Mr. Marshall is here tonight to bear testimony to the claims of philosophy, and you couldn't have gotten a leader of the bar to attend a banquet to a mere phi¬ losopher thirty years ago or even twenty years ago. The importance of Morris Cohen's contribution— and one names him as a symbol tonight because after all this is his party, if I were to talk out of school I should say it is Mrs. Cohen's party—the significance of Morris Cohen is in making us all realize that we are but parts of a larger whole, an illimitable whole. To that end you will forgive me if I commit the fatal sin, for a toastmaster, of reading. But, unfor¬ tunately, a distinguished scientist who was to have been here tonight was called away by the death of a very close friend, and so I must read what Dr. Alfred Cohn of the Rockefeller Institute writes, speaking as a medical scientist: 28 Morris Raphael Cohen Dear Professor Cohen: Not coming to the great dinner tomorrow night is a source of great disappointment to me. I had been looking forward to the occasion with much ea¬ gerness, especially because there were one or two things I wished to say. But I'm on my way to Boston to pay a last tribute to an old and dear friend. I don't want to let this opportunity pass, however, of acknowledging with much pleasure a debt I owe you. You are not unaware of a sort of distrust, peo¬ ple in my generation grew up in, of the importance of philosophical studies. That is of course passing away—^people cannot long refrain from asking what their callings mean. And you were instrumental in bringing home to me precisely that acquaintance. That year at the New School helped me signally to an appreciation of the relation of philosophy to science which had scarcely been as clear to me before. I shall expect to hear how successful the evening will have been and of all the well deserved things that will have been said. It's a lasting regret that I shall be unable to say my say. Sincerely, Alfred Cohn Dean Pound 2ç Well, if that is the testimony of a mind so curious and so sensitive and, in the judgment of some of his colleagues, so dangerously philosophic, what must be the state of African ignorance of the rest of the scientific world? Let me avouch a witness from my own territory. Dean Pound asked me to bring his personal greetings to Professor Cohen and to read a few words of his. "Twenty years ago the late Lord Bryce, speaking before the American Bar Association, deprecated a growing interest on the part of American lawyers in philosophy of law. Indeed, the orthodox Anglo- American legal science of the last generation would not hear of philosophy. Our law schools have always been professional schools, and the professional bent of our law schools has caused them to reflect a char¬ acteristic attitude of the legal profession in English- speaking countries. Adjudication and legislation were purely practical activities. Hence, as with other purely practical activities, the Anglo-Saxon point of view has been that no special training or preparation or competency was called for. In the last century we had like ideas as to the practical activity of admin- 30 Morris Raphael Cohen istration. We conceived that any honest citizen could do the work of administration. He qualified himself for administration by the apprenticeship of holding public office. He learned to administer by administer¬ ing. This served well enough in the rural, agricultural society of the last century. Administrative problems were few and simple, and as a rule called for little or no technical capacity. So it was, too, with adjudica¬ tion. Until the middle of the last century judges were largely laymen. Later, one qualified to be a lawyer by an apprentice training in a law office, and to be a judge by having been a certain number of years at the bar. This, too, served well enough in pioneer America. One of the characteristic virtues of the pioneer was his. versatility. He had to be ver¬ satile or get off the earth. If something was to be done he must do it himself. Little or no division of labor was possible. Hence the pioneer had something akin to contempt for the expert and the specialist. He believed in eloquent, self-trained lawyers, in fervent, spontaneously called ministers, and in healers màde wise by experience. In every connection we are hav¬ ing to learn better. Everywhere the old-time ap¬ prentice training is giving way. Everywhere we are having to recognize the importance of training, prep- Dean Pound 51 aration and science. In the transition from rural, pioneer, agricultural America to the urban, industrial America of today we have become painfully aware of the inadequacy of a rule of thumb adniinistration of justice by apprentice-taught formulas. The deci¬ sive importance of an ideal element in the law which our orthodox legal science of the last century ignored has been brought home to us repeatedly by dissents and five to four decisions in cases of the highest social import, in which judicial pictures of society as it should be have served as a sort of super- constitution. "Thus we are driven to recognize that criticism of such ideals and study of them whereby the subjective ideals of the individual judge may be discriminated from the received ideals which are in very truth a part of the law, is quite as practical as anything which went on in our study and teaching of law in the past. "In the formative period of our institutions in the last century, the classical seventeenth and eight¬ eenth-century philosophy of law played a leading rôle. In the hands of Marshall and Kent and Story it was a great creative instrument. Creative tasks of no less magnitude are before the lawyer of today $2 Morris Raphael Cohen and of tomorrow. He, too, must have and must use philosophy as one of his chief tools. The pioneer in the revival of philosophy of law in America has been doing a service to our social order which I ven¬ ture to think some day will be reckoned quite com¬ parable to the work of those who laid the founda¬ tions of the polity which served us so well in the simpler conditions of the last century." Roscoe Pound The Toastmaster There isn't a thinking lawyer in this country, there isn't a judge who reflects on his task, who hasn't been consciously or unconsciouly or, rather, directly or indirectly impregnated with the contributions of Morris Cohen to jurisprudence. It used to be a cheap gibe to say that a jurist was a man who knows about all law in general but about no law in particular. Morris Cohen himself, to no small degree, has ren¬ dered the name of jurist respectable even among law¬ yers. It had been our hope to have present tonight one of the two or three most significant symbols of the philosophic temper in the legal profession, particularly the philosophic temper in the judge. Professor Frankfurter 55 The New York Court of Appeals has always been a great court, but never before has it been so. conscious of its processes, and consciousness of processes is at least one great test of civilization. Judge Cardozo strikingly illustrates that evil company corrupts good manners} because not only does he read philosophy and refer to philosophers in his opinions, but his whole court is talking philosophy. You can't do the work of judging reflectively un¬ less you reflect. After all philosophy is not some¬ thing very different from the systematic pursuit of reflection on man's destiny and man's relation to man. Law embodies to no small degree the expression of man's relation to man. We haven't got Judge Cardozo here to tell us about that and nobody ap¬ preciates that better than Judge Mack. Judge Mack has merely a great taste for philosophy, that is, he mingles with philosophers. Whether philosophy can be rubbed off through contact, you will judge by what he shall say to you tonight. In all seriousness. Judge Mack is but one of a number of judges throughout the country who have a deep conscious¬ ness that law is not some imposition of will, that law somehow or other must have its final validity in that ordered reason which again I take to be philoso- 34 Morris Raphael Cohen phy. Judge Mack has been good enough to promise a few words in lieu of Judge Cardozo. Judge Julian W. Mack My friends, I regret more deeply than any of you that Judge Cardozo isn't here to speak for himself. No man, no judge, unless perhaps it be that other great friend and admirer of Professor Cohen, Justice Holmes, could fittingly take Judge Cardozo's place. I shall not attempt it. I am, as the Toastmaster said, merely one of the minglers, and it is because there are so many min- glers, not philosophers, not his former students but those who love to mingle in his society, that we wit¬ ness this great outpouring here tonight. We have come to bear testimony to the usefulness of that "useless" life. Perhaps too, one or two of us—I see one of my own former students here—can say a word of greet¬ ing from the West. We founded a School of Law in Chicago in the very year that Cohen began his teach¬ ing here, twenty-five years ago, and one of the great lights in that school was that philosopher in the law. Judge Mack 35 that close friend of Morris Cohen whose greeting you have just listened to, Dean Pound. I wish that I knew something about philosophy, as Judge Cardozo who ought to be telling you about it does, but no man can mingle with philosophers— and every judge ought to mingle with them—^with¬ out appreciating, as the Toastmaster said, that phi¬ losophy is the basis of the development of law. Cohen's contributions to legal science you will find in great number in this list of his articles. There are some of us who hoped when he took a leave of ab¬ sence of a year some five or six years ago that he would carry out the injunction that Justice Holmes laid upon him at that time, to produce not merely the Principles of Science but the great American book on Jurisprudence, that whom none is fitter to pro¬ duce than he. He failed us in that respect. He proved at that time his uselessness to the law. We trust that in the coming year, when he is again to go into the fields for contemplation that he will not be satis¬ fied merely to contemplate but will make posterity his debtor, and not merely posterity but his contem¬ poraries his debtors, by producing both of those books, in good part written—aye, I rather think 30 Morris Raphael Cohen completely thought out—^and now, many o£ us trust, to be written in full for the benefit of the law, and for the benefit of all society. We feel justified at this point in breaking into the continuity of the evenings addresses with a let¬ ter, received after the dinner, from Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo My dear Mr. Grossman: I feel a very keen regret that I was prevented by unexpected causes from attending the dinner in honor of Professor Cohen and bearing witness before that great assembly of his friends to my regard and admiration. I gladly comply with your request to send you a letter which may appear in the printed testimonial as a substitute for the spoken word. I think I know why you invited me. I am a pseudo- philosopher, and I hope you will believe that I am laying the accent on the pseudo. Any one can be a philosopher if he is willing to incur the odium of that pejorative prefix. The story is told of Lord Westburv that on one occasion he enraged the bishops Chief Judge Carduzo 57 by informing them that they had incurred the penal¬ ties of a praemunire. When a friend asked him what that exactly meant, he cheerfully replied that he hadn't the least idea. He ought to have tried his hand at philosophy instead of history: the disguise is so much easier. But there are greater examples than Lord Westbury. In his paper "The Myth about Bacon," Professor Cohen observes of the subject of the myth: "No wonder that a real scientist like Har¬ vey was moved to say that Bacon wrote science like a lord Chancellor." That is the way I write philoso¬ phy, if it can be called philosophy at all. But then, if I am a pseudo-philosopher, I suppose that Profes¬ sor Cohen is a pseudo-lawyer, though this time I am placing the emphasis on the lawyer rather than the pseudo. He is a pseudo-lawyer because he has never taken the traditional law school course, and has no license to practice law. That is his only title to what I have called the pejorative prefix. If insight into the essence of the judicial process, if profound appreciation of the fundamental principles and con¬ cepts and methods of the law can make a man a lawyer, then Professor Cohen is a lawyer and a great one, though seeing how many lawyers are entered upon the official roll, I think he will do 38 Morris Raphael Cohen well to content himself with the title of philosopher. He is teaching a great lesson, which is sinking more and more into our minds. I went over some of his papers last summer while I was doing some work upon pseudo-philosophic lectures. I was amazed at the range of his erudition alike in law and in philosophy, at the keenness of his perceptions, at the freshness and vigor of his thought, and at the com¬ pelling and arresting charm and incisiveness of his literary style. Sooner or later he will articulate his thoughts into a volume, and then his power will be felt in every law school in the land. I had supposed that the day had gone by when it was necessary to argue for the importance of a phi¬ losophy of law. Perhaps some are repelled by what seems to be the pretentious nature of the title. They think a philosophy of law deals with subjects that are complex or unusual or unrelated to life and con¬ duct and the problems of daily practice. The truth is that its subjects are the most simple, the most usual, the most fundamental and important. They are the foundations on which the superstructure must rest, with all the stories yet to be added if it is to rise in symmetry and safety. I thought, as I said, that it was Chief Judge Carduzo 3ç hardly necessary to preach this doctrine to the law¬ yers of our day. Its truth is so generally perceived. Yet every now and then, I am surprised to find that there is protest and resistance. Something of the old guild spirit survives. We are a class by ourselves, the priests of the law. We will mind our own preserve. Let the philosophers keep out. Something of this spirit can be traced from time to time in the thought of able lawyers. Last spring, in the course of an opinion on the subject of causation, I ventured to in¬ clude a citation of Lord Haldane's book "The Reign of Relativity." Lord Haldane, like Lord Bacon, has been both a lord Chancellor and a philosopher, though Professor Cohen will know better than I whether the stigmata of the Chancellor are on the face of his philosophy. Well, I got a letter from a distinguished friend, in which he said that he was greatly shocked that I should have cited such a book in the course of an opinion. He would stand for philosophy, he said, in the philosophical reviews, and . for humor in a comic paper, but he did not wish to see humor in an elegy nor philosophy in a legal judg¬ ment. Let metaphysics be kept for those to whom physic of that sort is palatable. 40 Morris Raphael Cohen Here you have the notion, which reappears again and again and has done so much harm to the law and its development, the notion that law is to be kept in a water-tight compartment and that within that compartment, and no other, is to be found the material by which its growth must be renewed. I can think of no one who has battled against that view more steadily and gallantly than this pseudo-lawyer who has enriched our conception of jurisprudence by the fertilizing waters of a profound and pure phi¬ losophy. We shall never get away in education from the study of fundamentals. We shall never get away from it or the need of it in the study of the law. We shall never separate the law from the study of philosophy unless we are ready to condemn it to barrenness and decay. In maintaining the relation between the two spheres of human thought scholars like Professor Cohen are keeping open the road to the steady progress of society along the paths of peace and order. With high regard and many apologies for my en¬ forced absence, I am. Faithfully yours, Benjamin N. Cardozo Resuming the evemng's 'program: Professor Frankfurter 41 The Toastmaster Judge Mack's remarks in regard to Cohen's juristic output compel a disclosure. This [referring to the bibliography of Morris Cohen's writings] is not a complete list of Morris Cohen's writings. For some twenty years I have been laboring under the unhappy pricks of conscience of having had certain writings of mine, modest to be sure but nevertheless there they are, appear as mine. I took my law when Mor¬ ris, as we say, took his philosophy, because he doesn't take it, you see, at all events I took my law when he disagreed with Royce and James and Palmer. In those days I had in the course of duty to review books on law, and they appeared—my reviews appeared —duly over my initials in the pages of the "Harvard Law Review." I now rid myself of the incubus of preening with other people's feathers by telling you that Morris wrote those reviews. I didn't ask him to write them. I simply would put a law book in his hands and say, "Morris, what do you think of that?" and there are those reviews. I give yoru a warning: I think he will deny the story, but it is true. I have further reports to make in the form of messages, only a fraction of those that have come. 42 Morris Raphael Cohen but I think a few of those you would wish me to read. Mr. Walter Lippmann writes that he is called out of town as a witness in a case and therefore is not here. "Paying tribute to Morris Cohen is something I have been doing as long as I can remember. I do not know a more distinguished mind and I do not know a sweeter or more disinterested spirit. Please give him my affectionate greetings. Sincerely yours, Walter Lippmann" Dr. Alvin S. Johnson telegraphs: "Profound regrets; confined to house; most cor¬ dial felicitations to my colleague Morris Cohen, wisest of philosophers and truest of friends." Professor Kantorowicz cables from Freiburg Uni¬ versity: "Germany honors America's most universal thinker." The communication from Dr. Finley intimates that when Cohen went over into philosophy he ceased to be a mathematician. A cable from Albert Einstein from Berlin corrects any such suggestion. "Unvergesslicher Gespräche gedenkend sendet in ($omt of % IKnitri) pintes fXx^Ttß. Si-^ ^Xi ^Cé^tk^ óñij^ L<»<,^«./K ^^C-tK^cn^ . /it«- i*.mj€) X-Lf iVLSd-p/ rf.<^'-<-«ÄJ; ÄwT. yÁ-A^ ^ /«t^ *X,^X.tj^,^ f.