BARRISTER-AT-LAW; PROFESSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON; AND LATELY IN

THE INNS OF COURTS; LATE EXAMINER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

AUTHOR OF

"HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF THE CIVIL LAW OF ROME," "THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS," KTC.

EIGHTH EDITION.

LONDON:

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LTD

1896.

The rights of translation and of reproduction

are reserved.

PREFACE.

As many of the topics treated in the present work are the same as those treated in my former work, "A Systematic View of the Science of Jurisprudence," it may be serviceable to point out distinctly the difference between the purposes I have had in view in preparing the two several works. This explanation will be the simplest mode of distinguishing their nature and scope.

The former work was written especially for Law students, including under this expression all who for the time are making Law the principal part of their studies, though by no means confining the expression to those studying with a strictly professional object in view.

The present work is designed for the instruction of all serious students, whether of the Physical or of the so-called Moral Sciences, whatever be, for the time, the prominent topic of their study, and whatever be the general or special object they have in view.

The wider and less technical scope of this work, as well as the preparatory acquaintance with scientific methods of thought I have held myself entitled to anticipate in my readers, has enabled me to dilate with more minuteness than I could elsewhere on the essential relations of Law to Morality, on the one hand, and to the general constitution of Society and of the State, on the other

The present chaotic and anarchical condition of Ethical Science in this country places the speculator on Law or on Politics at the greatest disadvantage. He must step out of his path in order to work out for himself disputable theories, instead of having an armoury of incontrovertible maxims ready to his hand. He can hardly turn to account even the commonest moral term without seeming to be a partisan in a war embittered with all the passions of political and even religious fanaticism.

Not, however, that I have shrunk from moral investigations, when the natural course of my subject has forced them upon me. I have throughout insisted upon, and elucidated in all the ways I could, the position that a moral constitution of society is, in conception if not in time, anterior to, and independent of, a legal one; but that, apart from the strength, coherence, and permanence