Introduction
contrary, leads to the exact opposites, and invests the law with a positive social function.[1] Windscheid adhered to his position to the last, but Jhering’s view has attracted the greater number of followers, and seems more nearly to indicate the real nature of rights as accepted by any of the present-day schools of legal philosophy.
Without the notion of interests, formulated by Jhering in the “Geist,” he could not have reached the conception of the “Zweck.” If rights are legally protected interests, it follows that the State must determine what interests it will select as fit for protection, and this question then logically develops the further inquiry of purpose in the law, which Jhering stated in the form of the principle, “the object is the creator of the law.” On this three-rung ladder of reasoning, he attempted to ascend the philosophic heights, and whatever may be thought of his efforts it cannot be doubted that he laid a pragmatic,
- ↑ Roscoe Pound, “The Scope and Purpose of Sociological Jurisprudence,” Harvard Law Rev., xxv, 2, 143; Korkunov, “Theory of Law” (Hasting’s tr.) (“Modern Leg. Phil. Ser.,” iv), p. 107 seq.
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