Review of Periodicals‘ flrliclcs on Topics of Legal Science and Relaled Subjects Atirlal Navigation. "Du Traitement Juri dique Appliqué aux Aérostats Etrangers Voyageant ou Atterissant en France." By Gaston Bonnefoy. 37 journaldeDroit Inter national Privé 59. “We can desire but one thing, and that is that this international regulation may be conceived and above all applied in a liberal sense, and that it may be ins ired by the first of the resolutions exprese by the Fourth International Aeronautic Congress held at Nancy in September, 1909 :— “ ‘The Con
ss resolves that the states,
renouncing pro ibitive measures, should agree to regulate aerial navigation in a liberal sense, protecting their rights of defense by all useful precautions, and ensuring the observation of their customs laws b appropriate measures, as has been done in t e case of automobiles. “ ‘ The Con as reoo 'zes that the regis tration of airs ips woul be the best and per haps the only way of assuring the efiicacy of liberal regulation." "American Oorpus Juria." “An American Corpus ]uris—A Criticism and a Suggestion." Editorial. 70 Central Law journal 127 (Feb. 18).
our contemporary makes a distinction be tween a synthetic and an anal
ical treatment
In the proposed statement 0 American law. It considers that we have enough fundamental principles of law already, and that what we need is chiefly to analyze and apply them, rather than to restate them synthetically. It thus treats analysis as the opposite of synthesis. It believes that an analytical statement of the law would be of inestimable utility, but it considers that a synthetical one would not be efficacious in remedying a deplorable situation. But there is no occasion for such a contrast between the analytical and synthetical methods, unless one adopts the idealistic point of view and considers a synthesis of legal principles to imply the erection of a system upon a speculative rather than a scientific foundation. To a practical American lawyer a synthetic statement of the law means simply an orderly arrange ment of the law by putting together disjecta membra into a ogical whole. Scientific exposition of law is at once analytical and synthetical. In the chorus of hearty endorse ment of the project coming from leaders ‘Periodicals issued later than the first da of the month in which this issue of the Gram §ag went to press are not ordinarily covered in this department.
of the bench and bar whose opinions were printed in the February Green Bag, there was not a single voioe echoing that supposed dis cord between the analytical and synthetical methods which troubles the mind of this critic. There is no occasion for the fear that the proposed undertaking would be carried out m a speculative spirit, in an attempt to do over a ain what as already been done, in the Co e of Justinian and the Pandects, as it will never be done a ain. It is certainly to be hoped that there IS nothing misleading in the modern use of the Roman law term corpus Jan's, as applied to American law. What 1'. Alexander and his associates con template is a statement of the body of law, and not of the body of right in a sense which is obsolete. Another misinte retation is found in the view of our learne contemporary that this project will necessarily be opposed by that school which declares all rules of law to be "arbitrary, transitory and temporary." The late James C. Carter opposed le 'slative codification on similar grounds.
e was,
however, an earnest supporter of tacit codifi cation, as appears from the quotation at the beginning of Mr. Alexander's Memorandum (22 Green Bag 59). There are likewise in this school of legal thought many who would cordially welcome the attempt to present any system of law, albeit transitory, in a more 10 'cal and condensed form in order to satisfy a arge group of practical needs. "The American Corpus Jan's." Editorial. 20 Bench and Bar 43 (Feb). “The ‘living body of the law‘ should be something more than a name. It should have a concrete embodiment, a living organism capable of assimilating this mass of decision, and, in turn, of being nourished, and growing to greater proportions, by means of it,— capable also, to carry the simile further, of rejecting what is poisonous and incapable of assimilation. . . . "It is not characteristic of the American people to be appalled by obstacles, however great. In such a work as this, however, they undertake something fairly com arable in diFficulty with any engineering eat in the history of the country. . . . "Mr. Alexander estimates that the work could be embraced in about twent volumes of a thousand pages each. . . . Unti some one subject in the law has been adequately treated in accordance with the scheme con templated, any estimate either of length or cost cannot have much value. . . . “What an object for the benefactions of some of our latter-day philanthropistsl A permanent Foundation of Jurisprudence, supporting a corps of the greatest legal experts
