UEBER DIE AUFGABEN EINER ALLGEMEINEN RECHTSWISSENSCHAFT. By Dr. Alb.
Herm. Post. Oldenburg and Leipsic: A. Schwartz.
The author of this little book, Dr. Albert Hermann Post, a Judge of the courts of the free city of Bremen, Germany, has made the study of ethnological jurisprudence the scientific work of his life. His idea and purpose are to establish a positive science of jurisprudence in the widest and most comprehensive sense of the word, on the basis of an investigation of all the forms of law, available to research, that have ever appeared. A universal science of jurisprudence, according to this conception, would have for its subject-matter the contents of the jural sense or consciousness of the entire human race,—the jural facts of the totality of human society. In other words, this science must be, not only historical, but ethnological. It must include the jural life not only of the civilised, but also of the uncivilised races of mankind: it must comprehend all. It thus constitutes a step beyond that great movement of the beginning of this century which gave us the science of the history of law. It extends the latter, supplements it, and aims to find in the juro-social existence of undeveloped and uncivilised races the germs of legal practices and institutions that the literary history and traditions of civilised peoples would never supply.
The matter of the present work of Dr. Post takes up some 215 pages. It treats of the available sources of such a universal science of law, of the elaboration of these sources; it gives a concise and illustrative epitome of the most important parallel phenomena met with in the jural life of the human race,—e. g. in the departments of the Law of Inheritance, of Property, of Marriage, etc., etc.,—and a survey of the separate ethnic divisions of law over the whole earth.
It is a grand task—the realisation of this conception. And its execution in its enormous magnitude is only possible through the speedy and intelligent co-operation of scientists and travellers as well as jurists. It will make of jurisprudence a natural science, as distinguished from the a priori character this study has up till now assumed; and its prosecution will impart into the science a light and freshness which it sadly needs. Next to theology, the science of law is least pervaded with the spirit of modern research. And this is eminently so in our country, where hardly the history, let alone the ethnology of law, is studied.
We are tempted to give a much more thorough and detailed exposition of Dr. Post's ideas. But an original article will appear from his pen in a future number of The Monist, and therefore we are brief.
μκρκ.
PERIODICALS.
MIND. January, 1891. No. LXI.
CONTENTS:
ON PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPRESSION IN PSYCHOLOGY. By Prof. A. Bain.