SOURCE: "Legal Mind at Work: Benjamin N. Cardozo's The Nature of the Judicial Process," in Books That Changed America, Macmillan Co., 1970, pp. 207-15.

In the following essay, Downs examines Cardozo's legal philosophy as outlined in The Nature of the Judicial Process, focusing on Cardozo's analysis of the primary forces that influence the establishment of judicial principles.

Benjamin Cardozo was rated by Roscoe Pound, an eminent legal scholar himself, as one of the ten greatest judges produced by the American bench. The names included in the illustrious line, beginning with John Marshall, shared certain common characteristics, according to Pound: "First of all, they were great lawyers, masters of their craft, masters of the authoritative materials in which judges in the English-speaking world are expected, as a duty of their office, to find the grounds of decision, and masters of the technique of applying those materials to the decision of...