Thank You, Mr. Cardozo

Reading through Posner's Cardozo: A Study in Reputation I came across a quote from Cardozo that really struck a cord with me. Say what you want about the guy's prose style (I'm personally quite fond of it), Cardozo had some incredibly insightful things to say. This from his seminal work The Nature of the Judicial Process:

"Every new case is an experiment."

Now, whenever someone gives me a funny look for going from psychology to law (which happens more often than you might think) I can skip the long explanation and quote my new partner in crime, here (partner in justice?). Reading through some of Cardozo's original writings reminds me why I enjoyed philosophy in the first place, why I thought I might graduate with a degree in philosophy. When confronted with such a well-stated, well-defined position, you can't help but flesh out your own in response. Reading through the blackletter law, I'm usually nodding along accepting everything at face value (much like you would reading a biology text, though law is much less of a science), but Cardozo's philosophy of law is at times brilliant and maddening and it's really helping to cast a light on my own jurisprudence. So thanks for the help, man.