Introduction
it has appeared in nearly thirty different languages, including Japanese. There have been two translations into English, the present rendering by Mr. Lalor first published by Messrs. Callaghan & Co. in 1879, and a version published at London in 1884 under the title “Battle for Right.” The present work has even been the inspiration of a novel by Karl Emil Franzos published (1882) under the same German title.
The books of jurists do not usually come within the mental range of the so-called general reader; as a rule they are limited to some definite system of law and to those technically learned in that system. A large part of Jhering’s writings, however, carries an interest uncircumscribed by geographical boundaries, and has gained the widest reception of perhaps any European jurist, not alone among those learned in the law, but also among the cultured lay classes. It is not difficult to understand this fortunate and unusual extension of Jhering’s fame; for it appears to rest on two chief grounds:
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