DIVISIONS OF LAW. 199 dition of their origin, transmission, and extinction {title, as we have already used the word ^), or to the remedies applicable. The setting forth of these matters in advance, so as to avoid repetitions and awkward digressions in the subsequent detailed treatment, is called, after the modern German usage, the General Part of the work in hand. In the Special Part the several topics are dealt with in order, and, the general principles having already been stated, only those rules are discussed which are peculiar to the subdivision in hand, or are in some peculiar way modified in their application to its contents. Thus Savigny's great work on Roman law is only the " General Part " of his projected system. Well framed legislative acts on large subjects usually proceed in some such manner from the general to the special, — thus the Indian Penal Code has chapters of " General Explanations," " Punish- ments," and " General Exceptions" (that is, the causes for which acts, otherwise criminal, are justified or excused), which come before the definitions of particular offences. The "preliminary" part of Sir James Stephen's Digest of the (English) Criminal Law is a well marked General Part. Again the first six chapters of the Indian Contract Act contain what a Continental writer would call the General Part of the law of contract ; namely, rules of law by which the formation, validity, and effect of all kinds of contracts alike are governed in British India. The other chapters, which deal with sale, agency, and other species of contracts, might be called the Special Part of the Act. Notwithstanding the obvi- ous advantages of this method, it has only gradually and of late years come into use among English lawyers, — I do not say in name, which is of little moment, — but in substance. The late Mr. Leake's excellent and accurate " Digest of the Principles of the Law of Contracts " is, however, a complete and systematic General Part for that subject. Where a wide field has to be covered, the method may well be applied on a smaller scale to subdivisions within the general scheme. It is hardly needful to remark that it is by no means necessarily confined to legal expo- sition; but it is specially appropriate for legal writings, including legislation, by reason of the number of technical ideas and rules of various degrees of generality which, in working out any topic, have to be constantly assumed as within the reader's knowledge. Frederick Pollock. 1 In a preceding Chapter.
