manner ot speaking and writing, tendencies in decision making and dispute settling, considerations taken and not taken, empathy shown and not shown etc. Such beha\ iour we may call part ot the overall lawxer culture, to which the historian thus can he said to have contrihuted her share. The language ot construction ought not to he confined to a discussion on what histor\’ is hut ought also to he the linguistic point ot departure tor discussing legal theory. For mv purposes, any constructed concept ot law is to he assessed against the prohahle social consequences ot the te.xt containing it being read, not against its supposed le\ el of truth. Foo much ink has been spilled on trying to uncoxer the nature ot Maw', as it there were one. It ought not to he a tjuestion ot what law 'is' hut ot how we ought to use the word or concept. Or differenth said, as a questit)n of what legal theorx' an historian ought to have. It an historian writing tor law students is to construct a concept ot law in her history, she ought to construct it so that the reading ot it will contrihute towards the making of good lawxers. Fhese preliminary considerations about historx’ and legal theorx' can he combined for purposes of this essax. M’he xxord or concept of law lies at the heart of the lawyer's language and is the most important linguistic tool at her disposal. I'rom m\' professed consequentialist point of x iexx, the historian ought therefore to construct legally relex ant ex ents ot the past in such a xvax’ that the resulting images ot the 'laxx' contrihute toxvards the ox erall goal ot making good laxvxers. But in order to assess the constructed images, one must first hax e a method ot interpreting the texts and m\’ method could brietly he described as tolloxvs. Fhe three authors in mx' studx'-Baker, Lauts and (hi/.zaniga-do not directly address the question xxhat 'laxx' 21
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