Why does he introduce his examples of larceny and embezzlement?
This question was designed to bring out what Holmes believes to be the value of the study of history for law. He tells the “story” of the development of larceny and embezzlement law on pp. 469-70. His point is that the social end of a rule (which is the important thing) is often obscured and only partially attained because of a murky and gradual historical development of the rule. He lays out the principle: “we think it desirable to prevent one man’s property from being misappropriated by another, and so we make larceny a crime” (469-70). We would think that the harm is the same whether it is misappropriated by someone who wrongfully (i.e., a thief) or ‘rightfully’ (e.g., a bailee or a servant) takes the property. Yet, because “primitive law” thought that trespass had to be part of a crime, a wrongful taking was required. But in “modern times” judges expanded the definition to include getting possiession by trick or device, which may not, historically, have been a trespass. And so embe
