Neo-Hegelianism in Jurisprudence a practical end are many and various. In so far as they can be realized directly in action we need not concern ourselves with the mode of operation of cultural forces. In so far as they require to be realized mediately, through the instru mentality of various agencies, a field for more careful . investigation opens itself, but it may be maintained that this is one of the by-paths of jurispru dence. Far more vital is the importance of explaining the origin of culture, and of explaining why culture is not station ary but is always a modification of an antecedent culture. Hegel would have been content to account for this origin and evolution of culture merely by an ideological solution; he would have sought the explanation not in dynamic factors, but in the successive stages in a progress of ideas to the goal of reason. In so far as Kohler dispenses with any inquiry into the etiology of culture or the dynamic principles of its develop ment he can be accused of betraying an unfortunate ideological bias, bringing him into closer mental kinship with Hegel than might superficially be sus pected from the general character of his philosophy. Kohler attaches much importance to ethnological and historical research, but he seems to have employed them rather as tools for discovering the cultural stages of periods than as means of account ing for the evolution of culture itself. He is concerned with the expression of culture more than with the manner in which a culture is determined. Ethno logical facts and general institutions will serve as evidences of the cultural state of a people, but Kohler seems to pay little heed to them as factors molding culture. Berolzheimer's comment on Kohler's theory of culture brings out the point that according to it "we are part of an
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endless stream of development, invol untary instruments of a rational idea, in which we believe but which we cannot direct."17 There are no points of arrest in this stream, says Berolzheimer, and there is only, for society, the "distracted pursuit of a constantly shifting pur pose." To give continuity and direction to a practical philosophy of human action, something more than the Hege lian view of law as an expression of cul ture is necessary; it "must be supple mented by considering that personal liberty is the object for which the cul tural forces strive; this personal liberty is intimately related with the impulses toward "progressive economic condi tions,"18 toward increased human effi ciency,19 toward restoration and increase of "that power which humanity has sacrificed in culture and through culture, that is, the natural exercise of impulses lost or enfeebled in the course of civili zation."20 Berolzheimer thus seeks to escape the evil of the Heraclitean conception that all things are in perpetual flux by taking refuge in the doctrine of a culture seek ing the goal of individual liberty and "increased human efficiency."21 His hostility to determinism prevents a de sire to investigate the dynamic processes through which culture is created and transformed. He has no inclination to study the manner in which a new culture springs forth from the roots of the pre vious life of society. He shows that law is not fluid, but the expression of cul tural tendency, thus breaking with the notion of a fluid law which he finds implicitly contained in the Hegelian system.22 But he succeeds only in link17 P. 427. 18 P. 24. "Pp. xliii, 427. 20 P. 421. « P. 427. » Pp. xviii, 231.
