What the presence of law tells us about our beliefs, our language, and the world around us

In a strikingly original work intended not only for practicing lawyers but for anyone interested in the modern dilemma of the loss of meaning, Joseph Vining invites us to reconsider law as a unique form of thought, inseparably connected to everything in the world that makes up human identity. Oliver Wendell Holmes asserted at the end of the nineteenth century that human law is ultimately a phenomenon in quantitative relations to its causes and effects, and many have been left with an impression of law as a set of processes and rules. Vining takes issue with this and with various reductionist attempts in scientific thought today to express the universe in a single mathematical description of forces, as well as with post-structuralist speculation that there are no valid truth claims, and that human inter-action can be reduced to analysis of power relationships. Law, he argues, is an independent discourse, not reducible to any other, that exists only in human interaction and reflects continuing human worth. Vining's search to reinstate the spiritual dimension in public discourse brings him head-on with a wide array of powerful academic forces: linguistics theory, political science, the new historicism, and the traditional teaching of law.

This book consists of a collection of what Vining calls "amplifications" of the implied text of the law—impressions, commentaries, vignettes, poems, and dialogues—which illustrate aspects of conventional legal language and logic, and the subjects legal practice regularly deals with, such as promises, death, and crime. Throughout we see that law reaches deeply into the way we know ourselves and other persons, all of whom speak through law as law connects language to person and person to action. The texts generated by legal method constitute the living record of social acquaintance and contest, speaking across cultures and across centuries. It is the close reading of legal texts and contexts, Vining argues, that provides the present source of the transcendental in modern secular life. But unlike the other academic arts of interpretation, law alone is directly connected with the most real, the most particular and, at the same time, the most universal facts of social life.

From Newton's Sleep casts doubt on the certainties past and present and creates new grounds for skepticism and conviction. The fragmentary form of the book mirrors its subject. It is intended to be picked up and read as occasion allows by lawyers and anyone interested in law.

"Clearly an important contribution to the literature of the concept of law."

"A surprisingly fresh voice. . . states considerations with which scholars of the law, even busy practitioners with more immediate concerns, should now and then grapple."---Christopher C. Faille, The Federal Lawyer

"This original book. . . finds surprising treasures hidden in lawyers' ways of knowing."—Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law School

"Joseph Vining's voice is a strong and different one—one that has the power to break the dominant patterns of jurisprudence. . . . His meditative illustrations, which are aimed at establishing that law is a response to persons, are the work of a lawyer, drawn from a lawyer's practice. Vining conveys with conviction and passion what all lawyers assume in order to do their work. Lawyers at any level of practice will profit from reading this book."—John T. Noonan, Jr., U.S. Circuit Judge

"From Newton's Sleep is one of the most important books ever written about law as a practice that involves whole persons and engages the emotions, imagination, and spirit as well as the mind. It is—what is even rarer—a wise book, with much to teach lawyers about their profession and all of us about how to live humanely in our world.... A superb accomplishment."—H. Jefferson Powell, Duke University