Reviews of Books tive, impregnably built up around the existing law, rather than around the author's opinion of what the law ought to be. America may have produced jurists of keener insight into the abstract principles of the law than Judge Dillon, but it has not produced any one his superior in the indefatigable zeal which performs the irksome labor essential to a sound and applicable interpretation
of the law that is. It is a truism that no man can produce above his own level, and a corollary of this is that no one but a great jurist can
write a great treatise on the law. Judge Dillon modestly attributes such merits as his work may possess largely to the fact that it was written by a judge and practitioner, but that is only half the
story. N0 one but a jurist of the highest attainments could treat the disputed and more shadowy problems of the law with such admirable judicial moderation and such sane self-restraint. The very caution of his utterances lends them an added authority, for if he ventures to criticise or to correct a debateable doctrine, such as that, for example, that
land may be taken by eminent domain only for a necessary public use, the
contrary view is suggested only with prudent circumspection. Conservative yet permeated with good sense, his
elucidation partakes of the majestic impartiality of the law itself, reflecting in the mirror of his erudition its inherent reasonableness and plastic continuity. The new chapters added deal with Constitutional Prohibition of Special Legislation, Constitutional Limitations and Restrictions on Power to Incur Debt, Amotion or Removal of Oflicers,
Ordinances Exercising the Police Power, Warrants on Municipal Treasury, Muni cipal Bonds, Street Franchises, Public Utilities, and Special Assessments. These new chapters exhibit but a small fraction
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of the enlargement of the work. The most important topics brought down to date are possibly the regulation of public utilities and their charges, constitutional limitations on municipal indebtedness,
and special and class legislation. The sections dealing with these topics em brace a great wealth of new material. RECENT WORKS ON POLITICAL SCIENCE Organismic Theories of the State: Nineteenth Century Interpretations of the State as Organism or as Person. By Francis W. Coker, Ph.D., In structor in Politics in Princeton University. Some time Fellow in Political Philosophy in Columbia University. Columbia University Studies in His tory. Economics and Public Law. v. 38, no. 2. Pp. 204+ 5 (bibliography). ($1.50.) Introduction to Politiml Science; a treatise on the origin, nature, functions and organization of the state. By James Wilford Garner. Ph.D., Professor of Political Science in the University of Illinois. American Book Company. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago. Pp. 606 + 10 (index). ($2.60.) American Government and Politics. By Charles A. Beard, Associate Professor of Politics in Columbia University. Macmillan Co.. New York. Pp. viii. 753 + bibliography 5 and index 12. ($2.10 net.) Principles of Politics. from the Viewpoint of the American Citizen. By Jeremiah W. Jenks, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy and Politics in Cornell University. Columbia University Press, New York. Pp. xviii, 175 + index 11. ($1.50 net.) The People's Law; or Participation in Law_ Making from Ancient Folk-Moot to Modern Refer endum; A Study in the Evolution of Democracy and Direct Legislation. By Charles Sumner Lobin gier, Ph.D.. LL.M., Judge of the Court of First Instance. Philippine Islands; Commissioner to Revise and Edit Philippine Codes; Member Na tional Conference of Commissioners on Uniform Laws; Formerly Professor of Law in the Univer
sity of Nebraska. The Macmillan Co., New York. Pp. xxi. 394 + appendix 35. (84 net.) The Old Order Changeth: A View of American Democracy. By William Allen Vhite. Macmillan Company. New York. Pp. 254+ appendix 12. ($1.25 net.)
HE so-called organismic theory of
the state is adversely criticized by so many distinguished writers that one is almost tempted to say that the cur rent orthodox theory of political science is that the state is an aggregate, not an organism, and that its juristic person
ality is a legal fiction and not a reality. The adverse critics include sociologists
