ve majorities?"[87]

Of two dissenting opinions filed in the case, one, prepared by Justice
Harlan, stressed the abundance of medical testimony tending to show that
the life expectancy of bakers was below average, that their capacity to
resist diseases was low, and that they were peculiarly prone to suffer
irritations of the eyes, lungs, and bronchial passages; and concluded
that the very existence of such evidence left the reasonableness of the
measure under review open to discussion and that the the latter fact, of
itself, put the statute within legislative discretion.
"'Responsibility,' according to Justice Harlan, 'therefore, rests upon
the legislators, not upon the courts. No evils arising from such
legislation could be more far reaching than those that might come to our
system of government if the judiciary, abandoning the sphere assigned to
it by the fundamental law, should enter the domain of legislation, and
upon grounds merely of justice or reason or wisdom annul statutes that
had received the sanction of the people's representatives. * * * The
public interest imperatively demand--that legislative enactments should
be recognized and enforced by the courts as embodying the will of the
people, unless they are plainly and palpably beyond all question in
violation of the fundamental law of the Constitution.'"[88]

The second dissenting opinion written by Justice Holmes has received the
greater measure of attention, however, for the views expressed therein
were a forecast of the line of reasoning to be followed by the Court
some decades later. According to Justice Holmes: "This case is decided
upon an economic theory which a large part of the country does not
entertain. If it were a question whether I agreed with that theory, I
should desire to study it further and long before making up my mind. But
I do not conceive that to be my duty, because I strongly believe that my
agreement or disagreement has nothing to do with the right of a majority
to embody their opinions in law. It is settled by various decisions of
this Court that State constitutions and State laws may regulate life in
many ways which we as legislators might think as injudicious or if you
like as tyrannical as this, and which equally with this interfere with
the liberty to contract. * * * The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact
Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics. * * * But a Constitution is not
intended to embody a particular economic theory, whethe