Legal Institutions, Not Just Legal Doctrines

"Legal history regarded as a whole is a history of institutions as well as of doctrines, and it cannot be complete until the influence of each of these two factors in producing the common product is shown in its due proportion. Law can act upon practical affairs only through institutions, and these two sides are indeed so closely connected that it is impossible for any student whose main interest is in one side to give an account of his subject without treating more or less fully of the other."

--George Burton Adams, "The Continuity of English Equity"