The Classification of Law By JAMES DsWrr'r ANDREWS "Far the most important, and pretty nearly the whole meaning of every new efiort of legal thought, is to make these [rules of law] more precise and to generalize them into a thoroughly connected system. . . . The end of all Classification should be to make the law lmowable." —HOLMES. "The first great need is a system of law, expressed in clear, compre hensible language. Thisisacode.... Of course it is assumed that the code professes to rest on some basis of theoretical Classification of topics at present in use among text-writers." —AMos.
[Foreword: In order to avoid misapprehension, it is proper to state that Pro fessor Kirchwey and Mr. Alexander, with whom I am associated in the Corpus jun's movement, are not responsible for the views here expressed]
CIENCE appeals to common sense
for its adoption.
Though there
are many who have no patience with the name science and love to contrast theoretical with practical, science is nothing
if
it
is
not
practical,
and
theories are no more nor less than the expressions of general doctrines arrived at by the actual examination of all the elements of the field they dominate. In other words, theories and doctrines
matic dogmatism of the subsequent philosoph ical schools, the genuine philophical spirit disappeared, and rhapsodical learning took the place of free inquiry, and knowledge became separated from life.l
George H. Smith, a scholar whose attainments have brought him recog
nition in two continents,’ says:— It needs but a glance at the works of Aristotle to perceive that the predominant motive with the author was that of adapta bility to use, or practical utility; and that he regarded this end as unattainable other wise than by the most attentive and persistent attention to the meaning of words.
are inductions drawn from a con sideration of all of the facts lying within the orbit of the inquiry, that is: an induction is a conclusion induced by the observation that all the facts lead to this one conclusion. The maxims of the sciences are but the condensed
The elements of the natural sciences are material objects; the elements of
result of the ages of experience, and
metaphysical, or moral science are ideas
every true theory accords with the facts. The master whose logic rules the world of thought required that every principle should be proved by observa tion, experience and reason. Nothing
THE GREAT IMPEDIMENT
or, as the logicians say, notions, concepts,
terms.
The first great difficulty en
countered in communicating ideas is
was to be assumed, nothing taken for
found in the difficulty of using words which will be apprehended by the reader in precisely the same sense
granted.
intended by the writer,
Friedlander says :—
The real founder of a systematic encyclo pedia was Aristotle, who not only created a new terminology, but sketched in his Logic, in magnificent style, an architectonic system of the sciences. In consequence of the prag
so
that
it
1Outlines of Jurisprudence. Hastie's Transla tions, p. 232. ' Judge Smith is the author of Smith's Right and Law; Smith's Theory of Private Right; The Theory of the State; a treatise on logic entitled "The Analytic 0f Explicit Reasoning."
