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facts an existence independent of intellectual and affective states. It applauds their reduction to the one and the other, sometimes to the former exclusively. However it may he, the philosophy of law cannot make abstraction from this, and in admitting a social will it is obliged to turn toward collective thought and sentiments to do the work of social psychology.
(</) Again, let us cite the relations of law with morality. Excepting general observations more or less vague, and the indication of very manifest points of contact, such as in the analysis of notions of justice, of responsibility, and of duty, we find in literature no solution so little precise and satisfactory. Nevertheless, " the juridical order is always not only united, but subordinated to the moral order ; " there are two faces or two questions to solve with reference to every phenomenon. It is, at the same time, social and psychic, and it can be elucidated only on this common ground.
As sociology, on one side, can exert a salutary influence on the consolidation of the first principles of the law, the juridical sciences, on the other side, are called to a no less fruitful reciprocity. Sociological studies are often reproached, and not with- out reason, because their lack of precision, the vagueness of their terminology, consti- tute too loose a method. The justifiable search for a fixed basis, for a character of scientific exactitude, has led some of the most powerful minds to give sociology a shape frankly biological. These attempts have formed only the scaffolding, useful for raising a coherent body of sociological inductions. The body remains, but the scaf- folding, formed of more or less arbitrary analogies, can be considered as definitely demolished ; and with it have fallen the appearances of precision, in great part fac- titious. Here is the point on which the science of law can lend its assistance, thanks to the spirit of vigorous classification which belongs to it, in the precise definition of notions, and in a notable contingent of already systematized facts which it has embraced. Does it not constitute itself the most important client to social science ?
But are not two domains and two different sciences confounded here ? Yes, if we wish to make sociology conform to the point of view of law, a frequent error among theoretic jurists, or if we wish to make law conform to the point of view of sociology, a mistake often made by practical sociologists, or, in other words, if we try to drive one science into another, and thus effect a reduction of that which is irreducible. There will be no confusion if we seek in the entire domain of social phenomena the unity of the fundamental laws in order to effect, in the light of these superior abstrac- tions, a rational classification of the particular domains and a definitive systematiza- tion of material so complicated. A conciliation attempted in a spirit of synthesis is fortified against confusion, provided that it is followed by a comprehensive analysis.
The connection of the sciences constitutes the basis of all philosophy, facilitates considerably the theoretic consolidation of particular branches, and always makes fertile the field of investigations. Thus, Descartes created analytic geometry by the collaboration of geometry and algebra ; Comte foresaw the important results which the correlation of physiology and chemistry would give. Combination of the latter with physics is now the order of the day. Modern sociology has greatly advanced in relying on a biological basis. Finally, the affinity between physiology and psychology has given rise to a new branch of the latter, physiological psychology. In this latter case there is more than a simple analogy with the relation of sociology and the science of law.
Jurisprudence, that is, the art of making, interpreting, and applying the laws, is sufficient for itself, but the philosophy of law, which is called upon to clarify with its lights, suffers from its isolation. In attaching it to general philosophy, as the German school has done, it is suspended as it were in an unstable equilibrium, instead of being furnished with a support. It is only by the medium of the social life that law can be attached to a general philosophy, disengaged definitely from all speculative character belonging to abstract ideology.
The general theory of law may have two points of departure. Either it takes as a basis the faculties of the individual, his reason or his will, in order to deduce the principles of justice, of liberty, of rights and duties; or it finds in society the only source of every juridical relation, and consequently of every notion of law. Attempts of the first category have succeeded more or less in constructing systems of private
