ed in battle during the Civil War. That experience intensified his patriotism, which he evidenced at the end of his life by leaving the bulk of his assets to the U.S. government. He also developed a keen sense of personal honor. He said that "in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing . . . we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor" (Bowen 197). Above all, the war taught him that life was essentially a fierce competitive struggle. He said that "life, as a fact, is a stern, endless struggle of interests" ("Justice Holmes" 603). One of his critics, Morris Cohen said that "his morality is thoroughly pagan or Stoic . . . his emphasis is on the pagan virtues of courage, temperance and justice" (McKinnon 167).
Holmes believed that law evolved through a complex process, paralleling "the mysterious growth of the world along its inevitable lines towar
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