Blackstone's view that certain abstract terms definitionally incorporate a wide range of specific results is tied intimately to his perception of a hard and suprahuman reality behind these general terms. If the word "property," for example, actually describes some underlying and noncontingent reality, then it follows easily that certain specific embodiments are necessarily part of that reality, just as pelicans are part of the underlying reality that is the universe of birds. … To the extent that Blackstone and others believed that categories like liberty, property, and contract were natural kinds rather than human artifacts, they were less likely to perceive the choices we would now not think to deny. When one believes that a general term reflects a deep reality beyond the power of human actors, the view that certain particulars are necessarily part of that reality follows with special ease.

XREF: Connects to nominalism vs. realism debates in philosophy and to contemporary critical legal studies about the constructedness of legal categories. DEFINE: Illuminates the contrast between viewing terms like property and contract as natural kinds versus human artifacts. Builds on: "Formalism wrongly treats legal terms as self-contained categories."

Frederick Schauer, Frederick Schauer - Formali…, loc. 31